


Shock Hazard

by adiduck (book_people)



Series: Heterodyne!Sorin FanFanFic [5]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: ADVENTURE!, Implied Torture, M/M, Spiders, Violence, creative means of assassination, criminally adorable robot pets, disgusting pining, jaegermonsters, minions and their Sparks, no canon characters, on-screen death of minor characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 71,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years before the events of canon, Sorin Petrescu, tentative Lord Heterodyne, has his first assassination attempt.</p><p>And his second.<br/>And his third.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nuée Ardente](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067129) by [Asuka Kureru (Askerian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru). 



> This is the second main installment to my fanfanfic universe based on the lovely Askerian's jaeger x townie verse! As always, I would like to thank her for allowing me to play in her sandbox, holding my hand through the process, and finally betaing the whole thing. This is for you, m'dear! (sends diamonds)
> 
> The fic is complete, and as of posting about halfway betaed. I will be posting once a day, but I make no promises as to when that will be! (because I am bad a schedules) Enjoy!

_0_

Sorin woke when something shocked the bottom of his foot.

“ _Ow_!” He sat up, ripped his foot away from whatever had shocked him—had he left something running again? No, he wasn’t in the caterpillar, this was the inn…

Snappy buzzed loudly at Sorin, dancing from foot to foot. It spat lightning at Sorin again. “Hey! What the—“ Snappy spun to look behind it and spit lightning at—“Red fire!” Sorin leapt out of bed, grabbing a bucket of water as he went.

It was, indeed, a fire. Sorin had been working on an engine in his spare time—a replacement for the caterpillar engine, which as it got older was proving to be less than efficient at heat shielding. He’d barely touched it since this morning, though, and he’d completely unplugged and unwired the damn thing before bed… “How did you catch on fire, you stupid--”

“ _Master_!” Premisl crashed through the door, halfway across the room before it ricocheted off the wall and slammed shut behind him again. “Vot—“

“Stay _back_ ,” Sorin snapped. “I mean it, Premisl, if you get burned again—“

“Dun _hyu_ get close either, den—Master!”

“It’s not plugged into the generator,” Sorin said, skidding to a halt next to the little table the engine was sitting on—now _also_ burning cheerfully. Ugh. “I’m just going to—“

Something inside the engine cracked and sparked. The flames roared—

\--the world spun, and Sorin was three feet away, on the ground with Premisl on top of him. “Damn,” Sorin muttered.

“Vat iz _in_ dat ting,” Premisl asked, and he sounded genuinely admiring, which was how Sorin knew the ceiling was probably on fire now along with the engine, the table the engine was sitting on, and very likely the rug.

“ _Stop admiring it_ ,” he said, elbowing Premisl in the ribs. “We have to put it _out_ —“

“Vot happened— _gott’s leedle fish in trousers_!” That was Chestibor. He’d been standing guard down the hall. If he’d heard then everyone had, drat.

“Master Sorin’s engine blew op,” Premisl explained, completely unnecessarily.

“It did not,” Sorin growled. “It just… caught on fire!”

“Dot happens,” Chestibor agreed, nodding knowledgeably.

“Lick a live generator,” Sorin returned. “Premisl, get _off_ , we need to put it out, it’s obviously unstable—“

\--which was when the engine finally really _did_ explode, outwards. Snappy was slammed into a wall, slid to the ground, and started spitting electricity at everything in alarm.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Sorin moaned.

Chestibor dashed across the room and ripped the blanket off the bed, throwing it on the flames on the rug and stamping on it to put out at least part of the fire.

“Hokay, ve iz going into der hall now,” Premisl told Sorin cheerfully, hauling him up.

“Let _me go_ ,” Sorin snapped.

“Master _Sorin_ —“

“Don’t you Master Sorin me!” Sorin kicked his legs behind him—fruitlessly. Premisl dodged neatly and kept hauling him out of the room. “I have to put it out!”

“Chestibor iz putting it out,” Premisl assured him. “Hyu need to get out ov range—“

“Vat’s on fire,” Veli asked, skidding to a halt as Premisl finally won the hallway. Sorin sighed, defeated.

“Master Sorin’s engine,” Premisl explained.

“It exploded,” Chestibor added from the other room, where he was holding the water bucket—still miraculously half full—and eying the engine.

“It _did not_ ,” Sorin started. “Well, it _did_ , but only after—“

“It kam on fire verra suddenly vit no varning,” Premisl interrupted, face very neutral.

“Hy see,” Veli said, lips pinched and eyes dancing. “Hyu hokay, kiddo?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Sorin growled. “And it didn’t— _Chestibor don’t pour that_ —“

Too late. The water hit the engine dead on, quenching most of the flames in favor of creating billows of thick, foul-smelling smoke. Chestibor turned away, coughing. Premisl let go of Sorin and ran back into the room to open a window. Sorin sighed again, exhausted, put his head in his hands. What a disaster.

Veli cleared his throat, shuffled a little closer to him, tentatively put a hand on Sorin’s shoulder. “Maybe ve go somevhere vitout all de exploded engines und smoke, jah?” he suggested.

Sorin growled, shook the hand off, scrubbed the sand out of his eyes. “No,” he snapped. “No, this _shouldn’t have happened_.”

“…Dat’s not actually uncommon,” Veli pointed out, wryly.

“It _really_ shouldn’t have happened this time,” Sorin insisted, crossed his arms and _glared_ at Veli. The world shivered a little, in and out of sharp focus. “Nothing was connected, there was no power source, I removed all the lava before I started—sweet lightning, the damn thing is _made to hold lava_ , if it caught fire over every little thing it would be _useless_! There is no reason why it should have caught on fire!”

“Bot it did,” Veli interrupted.

“I _know it did_ ,” Sorin shouted.

“Master, de fire iz out,” Premisl called, walking out of the room with Snappy wrapped in a blanket and held at arm’s length. Snappy was trying to spin around to spit lightning at its captor, legs spinning one way and then the other and buzzing agitatedly. “Snappy iz verra hot though, hy dun know if hyu vant to turn him off or…”

“Seven _hells_ ,” the innkeeper cried, and Sorin spun to see him at the top of the stairs, eyes wide. “What—how—“

“Just a fire,” Veli said, casually taking a step in front of Sorin— _sweet lightning_ , Sorin was standing in an inn hallway in nothing but his underclothes! “Iz put out now, sorry. Ve pay for damages—“

“Vat iz _going on_ ,” Stani asked, coming out of the jaegers’ room and taking in the scene.

“De boss’s engine exploded,” Veli explained.

“It _did not_ —“Sorin started.

“Caught on fire und _den_ exploded,” Veli amended.

“An _engine_ exploded?” the innkeeper repeated, eyes wide. Oh god, they were going to get kicked out of the inn, weren’t they, they were going to get kicked out of the inn while he was basically only half dressed and it was going to get back to the _Baron_ and to his _mother_ and to _every inn connected to this road_ and--

“Iz fine now,” Veli assured the innkeeper again, like that was going to make everything less formerly on fire. “Stani, can hyu grab a change ov clothes or someting—“

“Ouch!” Premisl dropped Snappy and shook his hand out, glaring at the little clank as it achieved the floor and sped over to Sorin, hiding behind his legs and buzzing at Premisl in offense.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Sorin said, in utter despair.

“Master,” Chestibor called from the room. “Should hy do sumtin vit der engine or—“

“ _Hokay_ ,” Veli bellowed, and Chestibor shut up, blessedly. “Ve iz verra sorry about de room, sir, ve vill pay for de damages tomorrow. Ve vill just double up tonight, hokay? Stani, clothes. Chestibor, dun touch de engine. Premisl… give de blanket to Master Sorin until Stani gets back.”

Veli leaned down and very efficiently turned Snappy’s lightning spitter off, and then picked it up—grimacing, argh, Premisl had said Snappy was overheating--flipped it over, and hit the lever to shut it down, before setting it back on the ground quickly with a hiss. “Dere,” he said, shaking out his hand and turning back to Sorin. “Hyu schtill feeling shivery?” he asked, giving Sorin a knowing look. Sorin blinked, accepting the blanket.

“…I,” he started, mortification and panic very efficiently derailed. “Um, yes.” He tried to look at the engine out of the corner of his eye—it was blocked by the doorframe, but he could still feel it _clawing_ at—

It _shouldn’t_ have caught fire, was the thing. Sorin had taken every precaution. That meant he must have _missed something_ , and he hated missing things, at least in this particular field. He was _good_ at this field, it was grating.

“Hokay, hyu get some clothes on und ve go for a valk,” Veli said. “Den hyu can bunk vit os tonight, und poke at de engine tomorrow vhen hyu iz feeling less floppy. Sound good?”

Sorin stared at Veli. Velimir stared back, eyes steady and fond and a little concerned, mouth quirked all soft at the corners. Sorin blinked, caught on that smile like flypaper, heart traitorously skipping a beat. “…Fine,” he said finally, all the fight leaving him at once. Damn it, Veli _kept doing that_ , it was annoying.

“Goot,” Veli said firmly, and then reached out and gripped Sorin by the shoulders, spun him firmly to face the room Stani had disappeared into and nudged him forward. “Let’s go.”

“But,” the innkeeper started, weakly.

“Chestibor,” Veli said.

“Got it,” Chestibor answered, coming out of the room and walking over to the innkeeper. Sorin turned to look, mildly concerned—Chestibor wasn’t really what Sorin would call polite at the best of times--but Veli stepped into his line of sight and herded Sorin through the door into the room the Guard had been sharing, letting Premisl squeeze passed with Snappy quickly before kicking it shut behind them all.

Bosko, Andrej, Lyubo, and Blazh all stared at Sorin from their spots on one of the beds, various levels of confusion or amusement on their faces. Sorin cringed, embarrassed, then turned to look at Stani, who’d looked over her shoulder when the door closed and then gone back to rummaging through a bag. “Hy gots trousers dat iz clean, Master, bot hy dun tink hyu fit into mine shirts.”

“…Where are Dario, Milosh, and Zbignev?” Sorin asked.

“Still out,” Veli said, steering Sorin to the second, empty bed and shoving him down. “Iz deir night off. Hy don’t tink hyu vill fit into vun of mine shirts either, hrm.”

“Take mine,” Bosko offered. “Vat happened?”

“Der engine caught fire und now ve iz all going for a valk to calm down,” Premisl explained, setting Snappy carefully in a corner.

“Oh!” Sorin said, alarmed. “No, not _everyone_ has to come—“

“Naw, just de vuns on duty und me, he meant,” Veli said, smiling reassuringly at Sorin over his shoulder before tugging another bag out of the pile in the corner. He ignored the minor resultant bag avalanche, opening the bag to rummage through it. Stani lobbed a balled up pair of uniform trousers over Veli’s head to Sorin, who caught them.

“Thanks,” Sorin muttered, standing up to put them on.

“No vorries, Master,” Stani said cheerfully. She shoved Andrej over and flopped into the bed, sighing. Andrej elbowed her back without looking. Sorin felt his mouth tug up at the corner, couldn’t help it.

“Hokay, hy tink dis vun should vork,” Veli said, holding up a shirt and eyeing it. “If iz uncomfortable let me know und ve steal vun of Chestibor’s.”

“Schteal vun ov mine vhat,” Chestibor asked, letting himself into the room.

“Hyu shirt if de boss doesn’t fit into Bosko’s,” Veli said. “Ve all set out dere?”

“Ho, yaz,” Chestibor said, stretching easily. “Ve can schtay an extra night iffen ve vant, even.” Sorin briefly considered how _that_ conversation had gone, and then immediately shut down the train of thought so as not to curl up in a little ball of blind mortification. “Hyu can have vun ov mine shirts, Master Sorin, bot hy tink it vould be a leedle too big.”

“I’ll try this one,” Sorin said, accepting it from Veli and pulling it on. It was… a little tight in the arms, but otherwise it fit alright. He looked up at Veli, shrugged. “It’s fine, I think,” he said. Veli blinked at him, then turned away, busying himself with the pack.

“Mm, hokay,” he said.

“Hyu chust need a hat,” Blazh interjected, from his position lying in the center of the jaeger pile. “Hyu should take Andrej’s, iz low enough pipple vouldn’t notice hyu iz human.”

“Hoy!” Andrej sat up, glaring. The rest of the jaegers in the pile started laughing.

“…I feel like I’m missing a joke,” Sorin muttered, as Premisl wandered over. Premisl snorted.

“Blazh told Andrej he could vin hiz hat in a poker game, und Andrej said he vouldn’t play, so Blazh says dot means Andrej admits he vould vin und iz his hat now,” he explained, grinning. “Iz a goot point, hy tink. Verra sound reasoning, bot Andrej disagrees.”

“Hy vill rip hyu flapping tongue out, Premisl,” Andrej growled.

“Oh _ho_ ,” Premisl said, straightening up and grinning. “Iz _dot_ so?”

“Andrej, hy iz _betrayed_ , after all ve haff been through togedder, hyu vill rip sumvun else’s tongue out before mine!” Lyubo sat up just so he could swoon, the picture of dejection. “Hy thought ve had sumtin special, a _connection_ over how hy never schtop talking und it annoys de unholy shit out of hyu—“

“Bah, hy tink he iz all bluff,” Premisl said. “Chust lying in here like a lazy ting vhen all de fon vos happening next door, for shame all ov hyu. Und hyu call hyuself jaegerkin.”

“Eediots,” Stani muttered, and pointedly burrowed her head under a pillow.

Sorin was laughing now, shaking his head. Chestibor grinned at him and winked. “See how moch fun hyu miss vhen hyu _actually sleep_ over in anodder room, Master.”

“Hy iz sure he iz heartbroken,” Veli teased, giving up on the bag avalanche and just carefully depositing Bosko’s on the top. “Hyu vant a jacket, too, kiddo?”

“Nah, it’s not that cold,” Sorin said, standing back up from the bed. He was starting to feel tired again, but a walk still sounded kind of nice. His eyes fell to Snappy, quiet in the corner. It always felt so weird these days when Snappy was turned off—Sorin had spent about four months fiddling with the overheating problem, and now Snappy generally just shut down non-essential functions for a few hours at about noon and was fine for the rest of the day.

He hadn’t considered the implications of superheated concussive force on the internal cooling system, though—clearly an oversight. He wondered if he could add a layer of shielding without impacting Snappy’s regular range of motion…

“Master,” Premisl called, bouncing his shoulder into Sorin’s lightly to get his attention. Sorin blinked, and the world shivered back out of focus again. “Hyu ready to go?”

“…Yeah,” Sorin said, and let himself be herded from the room. Then something occurred to him, and he stopped walking in the middle of the hallway. “No, wait. Did you get singed from the explosion? Turn around and let me see your back.”

“Hy iz fine,” Premisl insisted, not turning around.

“Premisl—“

“Mine jacket iz a leedle burned at de shoulders und neck bot de skin underneath doezn’t effen hurt ennymore, Master, really—“

“Did any cloth get in?” Sorin asked, now alarmed.

“No!” Premisl looked behind Sorin to where Veli was standing, clearly seeking backup. Sorin tried to get around Premisl to see his back. Premisl blocked him. “It vosn’t dot bad, hy dun tink it effen blistered a leedle bit—“

“Then why won’t you let me see,” Sorin growled.

“Becawz hyu iz gonna make hyuself crazy,” Premisl complained, flailing.

“He looks hokay from here,” Chestibor offered, from his viewpoint in the doorway.

“Dere, see?” Premisl said, vindicated.

“Turn. Around,” Sorin gritted out.

“Master—“

“ _Now_.”

When the innkeeper returned ten minutes later to see what the ruckus in the hallway was about, he found Sorin standing over and holding the shirt and jacket of one of his jaegers, who was kneeling on the floor in front of Sorin and looking grumpy about it, while two other jaegers looked on and provided commentary.

The man immediately turned a color that was disturbingly close to puce.

“Er, um, terribly sorry,” he said, taking a floundering step back onto the stairs. “Didn’t mean to—your voices are carrying down the stairs again, just wondering what else—I mean, whether you needed assist—I mean, if there was something I could offer—oh bother…”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Sorin insisted, face hot enough he suspected he was the same color as the innkeeper.

“Dat alvays makes it vorse,” Veli muttered.

“Shut _up_ ,” Sorin hissed.

“Hy got burned vhen de engine exploded,” Premisl explained.

“I see,” the innkeeper said, clearly not seeing.

“He iz showing him de burn,” Chestibor said. “Master Sorin iz too short to see if Premisl iz schtanding op.”

“Iz notting to _see_ , though, he iz being silly,” Premisl insisted.

“Your entire upper back is burned,” Sorin snapped.

“Not dot bad, though!”

“ _It’s in the pattern of your shirt weave_.”

“Bot iz half healed already!”

“Ve vill get out ov de hall,” Velimir assured the innkeeper.

“You are going to let me clean and treat that,” Sorin told Premisl.

“Hy thought ve vos going for a valk,” Premisl complained. “Hy bet de cold air vill help—“

“ _Premisl_!”

“Really iz not dat bad, boss,” Veli said, soothingly. “Iz going to all peel off in two dayz at most. How about ve go for de valk, und vhen ve iz back if hyu still iz vorried hyu can clean it, hokay?”

“I’m sorry, but can you please have this conversation out of the hall,” the innkeeper asked, despairing. “There _are_ other guests up here—“

“Hy vote valk,” Premisl said immediately.

“Me too,” Chestibor added.

“Valk it iz,” Veli said. “Come on, boss, give Premisl back his shirt now…”

“It’s _covered in blood_ ,” Sorin insisted.

“Iz brown, nobody ken tell,” Chestibor offered.

“Iz de hydea,” Premisl explained.

“Ho, goot vun!”

“That’s _not_ the point,” Sorin started.

“Gentlemen, _please_ ,” the innkeeper begged.

“Hokay, ve is leaving,” Veli said. “Hyu can yell at Premisl as hyu valk, kiddo.”

“ _Hoy_!”

“Dis valk hydea keeps getting better,” Chestibor opined, grinning.

“Ken hy have mine shirt at least,” Premisl whined.

“No, it’s going to cling to your wounds.”

“Iz dry und not bleeding, though!”

“See it as punishment, then,” Sorin snapped. “You want to air it out? We are going to _air it out_. Stand up and walk, and _never hide an injury from me again_.”

Premisl sighed, but he stood up. “Jah, Master,” he muttered, and tromped off past the innkeeper, grumpily.

“…Oh, red _lightning_ , go and get another shirt, Premisl. And _you two_ shut up!”

“Hy didn’t say ennyting,” Chestibor said, positively gleeful from the ambient schadenfreude.

“Me neither,” Veli said blandly, face so neutral he might as well be cackling.

“I hate all of you,” Sorin told them, and stomped past the innkeeper and towards the door.

Veli fell into step beside him, threw an arm over his shoulder and ruffled his hair. “Liar,” he said fondly.

“I hate you most of all,” Sorin grumbled, sulkily, and didn’t pull away even a little bit.

Veli grinned, but didn’t respond, and they walked out the door and down the street in silence until Chestibor and Premisl caught up, at a run.

* * *

_Veli had expected to be called before the Generals sooner, after he dropped into a remote jaeger outpost with a Heterodyne in tow, but it actually took about two weeks._

_Two weeks of finding Sorin’s parents and sister (and his mother and sister were_ definitely _also of the blood—Mistress Tereza even looked a bit like Master Saturn had, except with wild black curls and a wider, kinder mouth and stubborn little chin, the way Sorin had), of fielding wave after wave of wide-eyed, half-breathless questions from this brothers, of sneaking guiltily off to find what lab the Baron had squirreled Sorin away in and standing at the door, watching him work and listening to him hum and—very occasionally—distracting him from doing something Veli was pretty sure would end in a very large hole in the dirigible they were all currently depending on to stay in the air._

 _He was still giddy, felt a little drunk even, still stuck in that moment when he realized Sorin was going to keep them, even with all the things he’d be giving up. Was going to be their Heterodyne. Veli could barely believe his luck some mornings, and had to go off and find Sorin just to prove to himself that it was actually happening. It had been so long, a whole_ decade _now…_

_Anyway, so it took a while for the Generals to call him in to give a report. They spent a while dissecting the whole experience—why did you do this instead of that, where were you when you ran into this group, what made you think of this when Master Sorin did that—_

_He’d known, of course, that Mistress Tereza was in the room. Even if she hadn’t been very calmly sitting in plain sight in the corner, the room was permeated with Heterodyne. Even so, she sat silently and waited while Veli was grilled to within an inch of his life, to the point where it was almost a surprise when she finally_ did _speak._

_“Why did you bring him to begin with?” she asked. Veli turned to her—snapped to her, really, eyes wide. She looked at him, quirked a smile Veli had already begun to associate with Sorin. “You said you didn’t realize until you were in the tree.”_

_Veli had left out the bit where he finally noticed because he was basically inhaling Sorin’s scent directly at the time. He somehow managed not to look embarrassed when he said “Hy thought he might be goot leverage, und mebbe a goot source of information for vhat he saw.”_

_“So you took him out of the fighting and protected him? Even though he was just a boy from a town you didn’t care about, and you could have gotten your information on the way and then dumped him at the edge of the town?”_

_Veli opened his mouth to protest, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Because… yes, yes that was what he’d done._

_In hindsight, it probably_ had _been the less practical choice, but…_

_Mistress Tereza nodded. “So, the Generals claim that it’s traditional for a Heterodyne heir to have an honor guard—somewhere between ten and thirty jaegers, run by a Captain. They also say that I get to appoint the Captain, as regent until Sorin is prepared to take Mechanicsburg on his own.” She sat back, hands folded neatly on her lap, and looked him up and down. “I’m weighing my options.”_

_Veli’s jaw fell open. Approximately eighty protests all tried to leave his throat at once and bottled up somewhere on the back of his tongue, leaving him gaping like an idiot. Mistress Tereza continued, unperturbed. “Sorin likes you—quite a lot, actually, already—and things are changing so quickly for him right now, it would be nice to be able to give him a familiar face in his corner. But I wanted to hear what_ you _thought of everything that had happened first, and why you’d made the decisions you made. So far, I’m impressed.”_

_“Hy iz not a Captain, though!” Veli finally said, and then winced as he realized that he’d just interrupted her by accident. Tereza blinked, and then snorted at him, mouth pulling up at the corners in genuine amusement._

_“I’m told you’re a natural officer, and that you’ve been in training for command for decades,” she drawled, raising an eyebrow at him. “Admittedly, this would be a bigger promotion than you were gearing up for.” Veli wanted to protest,_ tried _to protest, looked at the Generals for support—they were looking away, of course, near-identical looks of innocence on their faces._

_Veli put together a few things he had purposely been ignoring in a vain attempt to pretend his Sarge’s lessons and Captain Lazar’s pointed comments didn’t mean anything and came up with ‘you have been fucked for about ninety years’._

_“You can decline,” Mistress Tereza said. “In fact, if you don’t want the position, I’d rather you_ did _decline. I don’t want to give my son a Captain who doesn’t want to be there. Do you understand what I am saying?”_

_“Yez, but,” Veli said, but Mistress Tereza shook her head, and he shut up._

_“No,” she said. “I don’t think you do. I want Sorin to have a Captain who_ actively wants to be there for him _. Not just take a bullet for him. I’ve met quite a few jaegermonsters at this point, and quite frankly, Sorin now has 2000 of those.” She leaned forward, looked Veli straight in the eye. “I don’t want someone who will take a bullet for him because it’s easier than getting everyone out alive, and I know my son. He will want everyone to get out alive.”_

_Veli knew that. He’s spent—three days, and then most of two weeks with Sorin, even as the kid was distracted and half crazed and breathless with sudden power and terrified of it all, and he already knew._

_“I need someone who will do that for him because it is what he wants, and because they agree, and for no other reasons,” Mistress Tereza continued, seriously. “I need someone who will_ live _for him, and with him, for as long as necessary._

_“So what do you say, Corporal? Do you want the post?”_

_Gotterdammerung, Veli thought, but this was not going to be easy. Harder by far than taking command of a few jaegers he’d known for over a century and who he trusted to do exactly what he expected them to do. He… he wasn’t_ prepared _for this, hadn’t even_ considered _…_

_Well, but neither was Sorin. Veli supposed they were a matched set that way._

_Anyway, it didn’t matter. The fact was, there was only one answer Veli could give, and had been from the moment Mistress Tereza had begun to ask._

_“Hy vant it,” he said._

_And he did._

* * *

_2_

Frau Tereza Petrescu, c/o Castle Wulfenbach

Mother,

I hope that this letter finds you well. Things are going well here. We have just left Portview and are headed now to Gladehall, where I am told a Spark lives who can give me some guidance in Field Medicine. I admit, I am not all that Enthused, but I’ve avoided Biological Processes for about a year and a half now, so it’s about time. At least this one should only be two and a half months!

By the way, I don’t know what you’ve heard about our visit to Portview, but just to set the record straight, everyone is Absolutely Fine and I was planning to get a haircut soon anyway.

(Scribbled in the margin: _hallo mistress is velimir we really is fine he only caught fire a very little bit and we put him right out and bosko and premisls scars is all gone in only one wek_ )

Speaking of essentially insignificant explosions, I’m going to tell you about Another before Veli tattles to the Generals and they blow it way out of proportion. (In the margin: _his engine exploded everyone is fine premisl got burned again und is all better_ ) One of my engines caught fire for absolutely no reason two days ago while I was sleeping. I’m still Annoyed, because I can’t figure out what happened (In the margin: _he is not allowed to play with engines after long day anymore *scribble of determined face*_ ). My best guess is something Sparked inside earlier in the day deeper in the Mechanism from some of my Fiddling, and since I’d done only a very cursory check to see how things had set before bed I didn’t notice until it burst into Flames. Good thing I leave Snappy running in the room overnight now! (In the margin: _snappy now has a hat looks very dashing like this *picture of a blocky vaguely humanoid-shaped object with a cap*_ ). Anyway, I’m fine, but Premisl got burned again. I yelled at him until he let me see, though, and then yelled some more until he let me clean it, so he’s on the mend.

To answer your question in your last letter, no I have not “met anyone nice.”  I assume by this you mean meeting someone Romantically; I have met some very nice people, none of whom I am particularly interested in courting. To be fair, I’m only in one place for a few months at a time, which makes forming long-lasting Connections with people rather difficult. And regardless, I’m not ready to start looking for someone to marry yet. I’d much rather focus on training right now and worry about that once I’m more established. I promise, though, the moment that changes I will send word so you can start planning a Wedding.

(In the margin: _dario and milosh and stani and lyubo say is handled_ )

Stop worrying, I’m fine. Give my love to Father and Ludmilla. (In the margin: _we have a fun sovenir for miz ludy don’t tel her_ )

Your loving son,

_Sorin_

* * *

_0_

“If hyu don’t put de book avay, hy iz gonna schteal all hyu stew,” Veli threatened, fishing another piece of steak out of the stew and popping it into his mouth. Sorin scowled at him over the top of his book. Velimir smiled back innocently, still chewing his most recently pilfered bit of Sorin’s dinner.

Sorin reached for his stew and pulled it very pointedly in front of him, propping the book up as a shield. Then he turned the page and refocused on the passage.

“Ho, a challenge!”

“Eat your own stew,” Sorin said, hiding a smile behind his book. “You have the _exact same stew_ right in front of you.”

“Stolen stew iz better,” Veli opined, and then the book was snapped down onto the table and right out of his hands and Veli’s fingers stole a carrot out of the bowl before Sorin could even reach out to guard. He waved it at Sorin cheekily and then popped it into his mouth. “Und iz rude to ignore hyu dinner partners, too,” he said around the carrot. “Hyu iz in a public place, for shame.”

Sorin rolled his eyes. They were, technically, in a public place, in that they were in the restaurant area of a pub, tucked into a back corner, up against the stairwell leading to the rooms on the floor above. The place was hardly bustling, though—all older working types stopping on the road on the way to wherever they were headed, interested only in some food and a few drinks and maybe the company of one of the young women moving from table to table and offering a night for a fee. It was hardly the type of environment where someone was going to be scandalized if he ignored the other person at his table. “You are such a hypocrite.”

“Hyu momma iz already mad at os for teaching hyu bad eating habits, hy iz just doing vhat she vould vant und not reinforcing bad behavior.”

“There is stew dripping onto your sleeve from your fingers,” Sorin said pointedly.

“Whoops!” Veli caught the drip in a long swipe of his tongue, wrist to finger tips. Sorin blinked, mouth going a little dry, and then forced his eyes back down to his stew. “Vat iz hyu reading so intently, anyvayz—ah, medicine.”

“I don’t remember _anything_ ,” Sorin declared, picking up his spoon and taking a grumpy bite of stew. “I’m going to get there and embarrass myself completely.”

“Eh, dat’s vhat hyu said about de magnets, und den hyu schtuck dat guy to hiz own machine, like, three dayz later.”

“This is different,” Sorin insisted, making a face at the stew. Bluh, too many turnips. “I knew a bit about magnetic fields from arguing with Viscountess Raduva on Castle Wulfenbach, and I’ve used it before in my own projects besides. The most I’ve done of field medicine was a few messy patch jobs and some burn treatment, and you guys had to talk me through the patch jobs.” He ripped a piece of bread off the loaf in the center of the table, dropped it into his stew to get mushy. Hrmgh, not sinking. He prodded it with his spoon.

“Vasn’t dat bad,” Veli insisted, and Sorin smacked his fingers away from his bowl as he tried to steal another chunk of meat. “Ow! Hoy!”

“Eat your own food, you’ve left me nothing but turnips,” Sorin groused.

“Hyu own fault for not guarding hyu food better,” Veli said. “Kiddo, look up.”

Sorin looked up. Velimir was giving him a look, mouth twisted like he was trying to figure out what to say. “Hyu did fine vit de patching up,” he told Sorin. “Und iz hour _job_ to get in de vay ov dose tings. Stop beating hyuself up about it.”

“I’m not,” Sorin lied.

“Mm,” Veli said, clearly skeptical. He turned the book around and looked down at the page, mouthing the words absently as his eyes moved along the text, before he brightened. “Ho, hy’ve seen dat happen to somevun! Hyu haff to aim chust right so hyu hit der artery underneath.”

“Ugh,” Sorin informed him, wrinkling his nose. Veli looked up and grinned at him, all teeth and cheerful radioactive glow, and then reached out really quickly before Sorin could react and stole one of Sorin’s turnips. “ _Stop_ it! Eat your own _food_!” Sorin hunched over his bowl and wrapped an arm around it, glaring at Veli so he wouldn’t start laughing. Veli stuck his tongue out and ate the turnip.

Then he closed the book and tucked it into his jacket without a by-your-leave.

“Hey!” Sorin snapped.

“Hyu iz doing de dumb obsessing about someting hyu don’t have to know right now ting again,” Veli said firmly. “Hy promised hy vould tell hyu vhen hyu iz doing de ting, und hyu iz doing de ting. Also, hyu owe me a beer.”

“For _what_?”

“For making me schteal hyu book,” Veli said, all haughty offense. “De nerve ov hyu, now de odders vill tink hy _read_.”

Sorin sighed, amused despite himself. “Veli, you do read.”

“Bah, only maps and soch,” Veli said, waving a hand dismissively. “Useful tings, not _books_.”

“I caught you reading that book of short stories for Ludy the other day and laughing to yourself,” Sorin pointed out, trying not to start grinning and failing.

“…De illustrations iz silly,” Veli said, looking shifty.

“There are no illustrations in that book, Veli,” Sorin reminded him patiently.

“ _See vhat hy mean_.” Velimir crossed his arms. “Dis iz all hyu fault. Vun beer, pliz.” He pursed his lips at Sorin, sniffing. Sorin gave in and laughed.

“Fine, fine,” he said, standing up. “Do not eat my dinner while I am gone, I will tell everyone about the short stories.”

“Ack! Nooo, how cruel!” Veli grinned at him approvingly.

“Yes, very,” Sorin agreed. “In my nature I’m afraid. Nothing I can do.” He set off for the bar as Veli laughed.

For all there weren’t very many people in the tavern, it turned out to be more difficult than Sorin expected to actually navigate the tightly packed tables to get to the bar. A good tactic for _keeping_ people sitting at the bar, he supposed, but sort of annoying when he was trying not to—

“Oof!” Sorin caught the woman who’d tripped almost on automatic, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. The woman was… well, dressed for her profession, to say the least. Her dress was cut so low Sorin was a little impressed it was still staying _up_. “My hero,” she purred, giving him a smile that made it pretty clear she’d tripped on purpose.

“Uh, no trouble,” Sorin said, feeling his face heat up. He set her back on her feet hastily, started to walk around her. Predictably, she blocked him.

“Not so many lads in here would have been such a gentleman,” she said, taking the front of his shirt in both hands and starting to lean in. “Let a lady repay the kindness? Half price!”

“No,” Sorin said, and very firmly moved her back. He was pretty sure he was now the color of a beet. “No, thank you, I’m not interested. Sorry!”

He slipped past her as quickly as possible and practically fled to the bar, telling himself he was imagining some of the old-timers at surrounding tables snickering at him. “Two pints, please,” he said, flopping onto a bar stool, fighting not to put his head in his hands and groan. A glance back at his and Velimir’s table revealed Veli doubled over, clearly clutching his stomach as he laughed silently. Hrmph. Traitor.

“She not your type, then?” asked a woman to his right.

He jumped, turned to look. Ugh, smooth. “Oh, uh, no, not really.”

The woman smiled, leaned back on the bar. She was dressed for the road, in a sensible gray skirt and sturdy-looking blouse, brown hair pinned back to keep it out of her face.  She set her beer down and then leaned back, towards him. “So what _is_ your type, then,” she asked, still smiling.

Sorin blinked. Uh? He glanced away from her quickly, over at Veli. Veli tilted his hat up so Sorin could see him wag his eyebrows, grinning like a fiend.

Well, at least he was already blushing.

“Nobody, right now,” he said, smiling apologetically. “I… well, I was engaged, but it didn’t work out.” Also, he wasn’t interested in women, but he was hardly going to announce that in a random tavern set off a busy road filled with travelers. He shrugged.

“…Oh!” She leaned back again. “Sorry to hear that! I… oh, and now I’ve put my foot in my mouth.” She sighed, covered her face in her hand. “Teach me to try flirting with strangers,” she said, wryly, blushing. Sorin’s blush reintensified to match. “Or having a _conversation_ with strangers, or _interacting_ with strangers in any way—“

Sorin blinked, and then snorted. “Naw, don’t be sorry,” he said. “I don’t mind talking about it, it’s not that big a deal really. And anyway, it’s a good thing it happened when it did, and not after the wedding. She minioned up with the local Viscountess, see, and when I didn’t she kidnapped my mother.”

The woman’s mouth went slack, worked like she was trying to form sentences for a second. Sorin smiled back sheepishly. “Red _fire_ ,” she finally managed. “That… is an _excellent_ reason to break off an engagement, wow!”

Sorin grinned. “Well, by the end I think my _mother_ let _her_ go, but… yes. Not really looking to try again for a while. But I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked your name!” He offered a hand. “I’m Sorin. You are…”

“Tamara,” the woman said, and shook his hand. “Pleasure, Sorin.”

“So what brings you to the road?” he asked, as the bartender dropped the pints at his elbow. He nodded his thanks and pushed the payment across the counter to him.

“Oh, going home,” Tamara said, shrugging. “I was at University, but my father summoned me back for a bit.”

“Hope everything’s alright,” Sorin said politely.

“Hm? Yes, fine.” Tamara shrugged. “He just needs an extra pair of eyes on something for a bit. What about you? Where are you headed?”

Sorin glanced over at Veli again, met his eyes. Velimir raised an eyebrow at him, in a relatively relaxed slump at their table still. He took a pointed bite of stew—Sorin’s stew, actually. Sorin rolled his eyes. “Gladehall,” Sorin said, turning back to his conversation partner.

Tamara raised an eyebrow. “Long way from here,” she opined, voice neutral. “Going for work?”

“Mm… for school,” Sorin said. “Sort of, anyway.”

“Your friend over there traveling with you?” Sorin blinked. Tamara’s mouth relaxed again, eyes crinkling a little at the corners. “Sorry, you keep looking over there like you’re hoping for rescue.”

Sorin felt his cheeks heat again. “Ah,” he said, very intelligently. Tamara’s smile widened, amused. “Sorry, yeah, that’s my friend Velimir.”

“What type of construct is he?” she asked. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, sorry, is that a rude question?”

Sorin snorted. “Nah, he’d tell you himself if you asked him. He’s…” The words ‘a jaeger’ died on his lips.

The thing was, word of the crazy Spark and the squad of jaegers that had set an inn on fire last week really _had_ gotten around, like he’d suspected they would, and… Well, people had sort of been giving them a wide berth when they recognized the jaegers and made the connection. Which was fine, honestly, Sorin didn’t want to talk to people who were put off by a little explosion, or by the type of constructs involved in it, either, but…

But…

She seemed nice enough, and Sorin hadn’t talked to anyone but a few innkeepers and the members of his Guard in ages, and he’d probably never see this woman again, and… “Well, the simple answer is he’s part goat.” Sorin internally cringed. Yeah, good job, _that_ was believable.

“…He’s green,” Tamara pointed out.

“Yes,” Sorin agreed, feeling pretty stupid.

“…A green goat?”

“Mm,” Sorin said, mind scrambling to fill in the blanks of this story—this was why he never lied, really, he was _so bad at it_. “He says his creator was trying for a jaegermonster look, but I’m not sure I believe it. He’s a goof.”

They both looked over at Velimir. Veli raised an eyebrow and set his spoon back down on Sorin’s bowl, waving as he obviously swallowed. Sorin grinned, immediately feeling better in spite of himself. “See what I mean,” he said. Tamara snickered again.

“He looks the part,” she told Sorin, turning back. “Hat and everything.” Sorin shrugged.

“He’s sort of proud of it,” he said, which was only the truth. “Anyway, I should get this over to him before he eats my entire meal.” And before Sorin dug himself a deeper hole. “Nice talking to you, Tamara.”

“You too!” Tamara said, smiling as Sorin stood. “As it happens, my home _town_ is Gladehall—why I was surprised,” she explained. “So maybe we’ll see each other on the way!”

Sorin paused mid-step. “Huh,” he said. “Wow, that’s a neat coincidence!” Or a convenient one, either/or. Hrm… “Hope to see you again, then!”

He made his way back to Veli, holding the beer pints carefully in front of him and taking the long way around the tables so he didn’t run into any more… well, anyone else. When he got there, Veli stretched out and received the beer pint like it was the Holy Grail. Sorin snorted at him and flopped back into his own seat.

“…You ate everything but the turnips,” he noted, feelings of unease pushed aside by helpless amusement. “You _child_.”

“Hyu vas off making friends und not bringing mine beer, hy vas eating my feelings ov abandonment,” Veli told him, seriousness of his voice belied by the crinkling at the corner of his eyes, the tilt to his mouth he didn’t quite seem to be able to smooth out.

“You are buying me more stew,” Sorin said, flatly, and took a sip of his beer.

“Hokay, boss,” Veli said easily. “So who vas de girl?”

“Hm?” Sorin looked up, raising an eyebrow. Veli scowled at him.

“Come on, de girl! Hyu vas talking to her for ten minutes! Vat’s her name, den?”

“You all need to _stop trying to set me up with friends_ ,” Sorin said, glaring. “You’re all worse than my mother and her campaign to make me find ‘someone nice’! I am capable of making my own friends.”

“Did hyu make a friend, den?” Veli asked, propping his chin on this interlaced fingers and fluttering his eyelashes at Sorin ridiculously. Sorin snorted.

“…Her name’s Tamara,” he said finally.

Veli blinked, shoulders stiffening a little. Probably Sorin had let some of his… unease into his voice. Drat. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Sorin picked up his spoon again and poked at his turnips. “Apparently, she’s from Gladehall, and headed home to help her father with something.” Sorin paused to take a sip of his beer. “In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned where I was going before finding out where _she_ was going, if I was going to mention it at all, shut up. Also, she knows that jaegermonsters wear hats. I didn’t know that until I _met_ jaegers, is that just because Vulkanburg is where common knowledge goes to die or…”

“…Probably,” Veli admitted.

“Eat a duck,” Sorin said, taking another gulp of beer.

“Hoy, hyu said it, not me!” Sorin made a gesture his mother would have spanked him for. Veli snorted. “Hyu feeling veird about her, though?” he asked about a minute later, casual tone belied by the careful look he was giving Sorin over the top of his beer mug. Sorin frowned.

Over the last two years, his Guard had developed a pretty healthy respect for his “weird feelings,” as they called them. If he said yes, Velimir would set a tail on her, right now. Knowing his jaegers, the tail would not be subtle. Probably she would see them, which… well, that would make her nervous even if she _wasn’t_ doing anything, and… hrm. There was something off, but…

“Not yet,” he said finally.

“Let me know,” Veli said, eyes shifting to look at Tamara again, this time significantly less friendly.

“I always do,” Sorin said, and resolutely settled in to eat his turnips.

* * *

“Oh, remind me later to come up with a better lie for what type of construct you guys are.”

“…Huh, hokay. Do hyu need vun?”

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, people _panic_ when I tell them I travel with jaegers, especially after that explosion—“

“Hy thought it _vasn’t_ an explosion, though!”

“Go lick an anvil.”

* * *

_5_

Theopholous DuMedd, c/o Castle Wulfenbach

Theo,

Thank you for the letter, and for taking the time to write out that explanation of what in the seven Popes a bilateral aortal clone is. Also for your Assurances that bilateral aortal clones cannot happen naturally.

I am less thankful for the three pages of you laughing at me for being concerned about the existence of bilateral aortal clones, but I am prepared to take the Bad with the Good. Also, you’re a jerk. Additionally, I will stop reading “overly obscure medical texts” when I no longer have to ask people for explanations about things like bilateral aortal clones, and not before. Go lick a flask of acid.

I am Sorry to say I haven’t heard from Gil either. It’s a little concerning, actually, since he’d always answered my letters before going to Paris. His Silence is the only reason I’ve been bombarding the likes of you with medical questions, you see. I’m down to my last Resort!

In all seriousness, I will absolutely let you know if I Hear anything. It is possible his replies have been lost in the mail. I do move around a lot, and he is likely still Traveling himself, which might make delivering letters difficult. Besides which, it has only been one month. I propose we give him a little Time to settle before we begin to worry.

I ran into something the other day that I thought you’d enjoy hearing about! We were passing through a Town on the way to Gladehall, and I came across the most Curious contraption stuck to a windmill…

* * *

_12_

Doctor von Elbe was an old man, as were most of the Sparks to whom the Baron sent Sorin. He was small and stooped, bent over a cane that he clutched with knobby, arthritic hands that were noticeably steady despite his difficulty standing when Sorin walked into his office, he had obvious laugh lines near his eyes and frown lines on his forehead, and his eyes were a clear, piercing gray even behind the ridiculously thick spectacles perched on his short, pointed nose.

Sorin liked him instantly.

“Herr Petrescu, I presume,” he croaked out, holding one of those steady hands out for a firm shake. “Welcome! You made good time!”

“Just Sorin, please, Doctor. And… yes! No problems on the road.”

“Good to know the local militias are doing their jobs!” the Doctor said, grinning a sharp smile. “Lord knows we have enough of them these days. Speaking of, I assume these gentlemen behind you are the jaegers the Baron sent with you in case that turned out to be a false assumption?”

“Who iz hyu callink a gentleman,” Dario snarked, grinning. There were several sounds of fists hitting flesh. “Ow.” Sorin fought not to laugh, relaxing all at once. Introducing the jaegers was always a bit tricky to handle; so many Sparks either interpreted them as a threat or an insult.

“Unfortunately,” he said, giving the Doctor a look that probably looked more amused than put upon. “This is Sergeant Velimir to my right, and behind me we have—“ he turned to look. “Left to right, Andrej, Zbignev, Bozidar, and Blazh, and behind them is Dario, Milosh, Stanislava, Chestibor, Lyubo, and Premisl.”

“Oh, apologies, gentlemen and _lady_ ,” the Doctor corrected himself, bowing at the neck to Stani. She grinned, sharp like a shark. He smirked back at her, turned back to Sorin. “Introductions on my end will have to wait,” he said, a bit shrewdly. “I doubt I’d be able to cram anyone else in here at the moment.”

“Ve can disperse if hyu vant,” Veli said casually. “Meester Sorin tinks meeting os all at vunce iz easier on de host, though. Ripping off de bandage, like.” Well, that, and Sorin had found it was a lot easier to judge whether he should be paying attention to what a Spark was doing if he got to watch how that Spark responded to the sudden squad of jaegermonsters on his doorstep, but Sorin thought it'd be best not to mention that reason, so he kept silent.

“Ha! Well, I appreciate the concern,” the Doctor croaked, shaking his head. “No, I think we’re just about done here, anyway. Apologies for running, Sorin, but my schedule tends to be more a suggestion than anything else, it seems. I wouldn’t have been here at all, except I always feel like sending a guest off to wait for my return is rude.”

Sorin cringed. “I hope we didn’t put you out,” he started, but the Doctor waved dismissively.

“No, no, don’t apologize. Just the life of a medical doctor. I’m afraid I have _no_ idea when I’ll be free to begin tomorrow, though. Do you mind being flexible?”

Well, that was definitely different. Usually Sorin was given a time and a place and ordered to report. He wasn’t sure being on _call_ was much better. “That’s fine,” he said anyway.

“Good, good! I’d take you on rounds, but I’d like a better idea of where you stand in terms of knowledge level first, you understand—oh! Where is that girl,” the Doctor muttered, hobbling out from behind his desk and walking out to stand near Sorin, peering out the door. Milosh stepped aside obligingly to give von Elbe a better line of sight, shoving Dario into the wall as he did. Dario _oophed_ and elbowed Milosh in the side. “Sorry, lad, my chief minion is usually the most punctual person I know. Hope I haven’t broken her of that with my own bad habits already… ah. Here she comes.”

“Sorry, Doctor,” came a very familiar voice, and Sorin went suddenly cold, could feel his eyes bugging out of his head. Veli looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. “I got caught in the waiting room. There’s a family in with what I think is a case of measles, even the parents— _Sorin Petrescu_.”

“Rozalia Iliescu,” Sorin greeted back, feeling almost dazed. Next to him, Veli stiffened. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Oh,” the Doctor said, looking between them with an increasingly concerned expression. “You two have… met, then?”

“You could say that,” Sorin said flatly.

“He was my father’s apprentice,” Rozalia explained, carefully blank face ruined entirely by the way her eyes were practically shooting sparks. “We were in talks for engagement at one point.”

“It didn’t work out,” Sorin added.

“Bit of an irreconcilable personality clash,” Rozalia filled in.

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Sorin asked.

“Is there something _else_ to call it?” Rozalia responded, openly glaring at him now.

“I could think of a few things,” Sorin admitted, waspishly.

“Please do keep them to yourself,” Rozalia suggested, voice going faux-sweet.

“…I see,” the Doctor said. Sorin turned his head just a bit so he could see von Elbe out of the corner of his eye, couldn’t tell if the Doctor looked concerned or amused. “Well, I suppose that sort of thing happens. Unfortunately, Rozalia tends to be my primary contact when I’m away, Sorin, and I’d hoped she would be able to handle arrangements and perhaps a few preliminary assessments of what you know. Will you two be able to work together while this arrangement lasts, do you suppose, or should I try to find someone else—“

“Oh, no, Doctor, I’ll be fine,” Rozalia said, even as she made a concerted effort to skin Sorin with her eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of remaining professional.”

“So am I,” Sorin gritted out, forcing himself to relax. “It won’t be a problem, Doctor.”

“…Mm,” the Doctor said, clearly not convinced, but definitely more amused than he was concerned about it. “Well, hopefully we won’t have to test your resolve too much, at any rate. I would like you to bring Sorin and his squad of jaegers to the rooms that have been prepared if you would, Rozalia, and see to any additional arrangements they need…”

Sorin wasn’t going to be asking Rozalia for _anything_. He hoped the rooms were already okay, because if not they were going to be doing without for the next two and a half or so months. “Getting settled in sounds good,” he said, as neutrally as possible.

“Well, then, I’ll just take you to where you’ll all be staying!” Rozalia smiled in a way that made it pretty clear she’d bite if provoked, and spun on her heel to march back out of the room. “I’ll come and meet you once I’m finished, Doctor.”

“Please don’t murder them all and bury their bodies the first day, my dear, I don’t know _what_ I’d tell the Baron,” the Doctor called, now _definitely_ amused. Sorin fought not to scowl. The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, lad, I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

“Good to meet you, Doctor,” Sorin said without looking away from Rozalia, and then he marched out after her, grimly.

He caught up with her at the end of the hall—she fell back so he wouldn’t be right behind her, like _he_ was the member of this party prone to _backstabbing_ , _ha_ —and they walked down two corridors and around a corner in silence.

Then she stopped and rounded on him, hands on her hips like she was about to scold a naughty child. Sorin crossed his arms and scowled back. “What,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “are you _doing here_?”

“Trust me,” Sorin said grimly. “If I had known you were here, I’d have told the Baron where to shove his two to three months of field medicine training.”

“The _Baron_ is who _gave me this reference_ ,” Rozalia hissed. “I don’t believe you didn’t know I was here! Are you planning to rip another town out from underneath its rightful Spark? I heard you’re the Baron’s _lackey_ now, has he decided Doctor von Elbe’s town is too _prosperous_ and needs to be fully devoured by the Empire—“

“Red _fire_ ,” Sorin snapped, uncrossing his arms so he could properly clench his fists, lean into her space. “Its _rightful Spark_? The Viscountess decided a _nineteen-year-old boy and unidentified construct_ were such a threat to her that she was willing to destroy the town’s _entire water supply to kill us_! My family was down there! _Your family_ was down there, though I guess you didn’t much _care_ about that, since none of us had heard _anything_ from you in _two weeks_ —“

“I bet my father didn’t even _notice_ ,” Rozalia screeched, dropping her arms to clench her fists, too. “He had his _precious apprentice_ , didn’t he? The son he always wanted, and never mind that I had _no_ interest in marrying a man who could barely ever be bothered to give me the time of _day_ —already playing the adoring son-in-law, weren’t you, I could see where _that_ was going—“

“I was _playing_ the _dutiful apprentice_ ,” Sorin shouted back. “Because I _was_ , thank you, and thank you _again_ for making it _impossible_ for me to finish that apprenticeship, Rozalia, really, _you_ are the injured party in this farce—“

“Oh, yes, you are _completely innocent_! Poor, maligned Sorin, doesn’t get _exactly what he wants_ for once—“

“Hy ken see,” Zbignev interrupted, voice shaking with laughter, “vhy sumvun thought hyu two should get married.”

“Vhy didn’t hyu ever tell os about dis!” Dario crowed. Sorin opened his mouth to defend himself. Dario talked over him. “No, really! Here ve iz settink hyu op vit pipple for hyu mamma, und already dere iz a nize gurl here who vants to keel hyu—“ Veli and Stani punched him in the head simultaneously. He went flying sideways into Milosh, who caught him and gave him a rap on the top of the head for good measure. “ _Ow_ ,” Dario said, glaring at them.

“Vhy don’t ve finish dis conversation in de rooms,” Veli suggested mildly, shoving his hands nonchalantly into his pockets.

“I wouldn’t marry _him_ if he were the _last man on earth_ ,” Rozalia declared, glaring at Dario like she’d rather like to punch him herself.

“Good,” Sorin growled. “I wouldn’t have you anyway. Can you _please_ just _bring us to our rooms_ , now?”

“Oh, don’t pretend this was all _me_ being irrational—“

“—Yes, trapping guests in the hallways when you’re the one supposed to be showing them where they’re going and shouting at them is _such a rational thing to do_ —“

“— _You are the one who started shouting_ —“

“— _You are shouting right NOW_ —“

“ _Cheeldrun_ ,” Zbignev bellowed, voice thundering over the top of Sorin and Rozalia’s, echoing off the hallways around them. Sorin’s mouth snapped closed, head jerking towards Zbignev, eyes wide. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rozalia do the same, face suddenly white. Because the big bad jaeger was of course going to _eat_ her or something in her _Spark’s castle_. That made a lot of sense! Fear was obviously warranted! Sorin fought down the urge to reach over and shake her.

“…Rooms?” Veli finally said, and he was _still trying not to laugh_ , they were _all_ trying not to laugh, Sorin was going to fire them—

“…Yes, of course,” Rozalia forced out, turning and marching up the hallway again. “Right this way, please.” Sorin scowled after her, crossed his arms, feeling mean and childish and even _more_ angry as a result, opened his mouth to say something—

Veli prodded him in the small of the back. “If ve get to de rooms ve don’t have to talk to her anymore,” he pointed out, leaning over so he could whisper directly into Sorin’s ear.

Sorin huffed, rolled his shoulders. He was starting to get a headache, tense as he was, this was ridiculous.

“Hy buy hyu a drink after,” Veli wheedled. “Ve go right after she leaves und hy buy hyu a drink.”

“…Fine,” Sorin muttered back, watching Rozalia continue to walk away. “But if I kill her in the next ten minutes, I am blaming you.”

“Iz a deal,” Velimir assured him, and prodded Sorin in the back again. “After hyu, kiddo.”

Sorin watched as Rozalia realized she wasn’t being followed, turned to glare at them all, shoe tapping on stone impatiently. “Better be a big drink,” he muttered. Veli snickered.

“Two drinks,” he bartered. “but hyu have to not kill her, hy dun vant to have to explain to de Baron vhy ve had to leave de first day vhen de Spark iz not roasting childrun over a fire.”

“I am _perfectly happy_ to just leave you here in the middle of the hallway,” Rozalia called, at the end of her limited patience.

“Three drinks,” Veli amended, and Sorin sighed.

“Just two and a half months, right?” he asked, hopelessly.

“Bet hyu can finish in two,” Veli proposed, loyally.

“Guess we’ll see,” Sorin said, and started forward again.

Ten minutes, and then he got three free alcoholic beverages and an ear to rant at. Sorin figured it could be worse.

“So nice of you to join me,” Rozalia griped, as Sorin caught up. “Thank you ever so much for deciding to waste as little of my time as possible.”

Sorin took it back. It could not be worse, and also he was going to kill Rozalia and run away to Paris. He bet nobody would make him deal with Rozalia in Paris…

* * *

“Dere,” Veli said, plopping a glass of brandy and two pints of beer in front of Sorin with a flourish and somehow managing to not spill his own beer in the process. “Thenk hyu for not killing de crazy lady on de first day.”

“I bet you wouldn’t actually have _minded_ if I’d killed her,” Sorin groused, reaching for the brandy. “I bet it would have made all of your lives more interesting, and you would have thanked me.”

“Vell,” Veli said speculatively. “Dere iz alvays tomorrow.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Sorin said eloquently, and took a big gulp of his brandy. It burned his throat on the way down, sent tendrils of warmth out from his stomach to his fingertips. “I don’t even _want_ this anymore,” he groused, glaring at the glass. “I want to hit something instead.”

Veli snorted. “Ve can do dat,” he offered, “but hy already paid for dem so somevun should drink dem.”

“Hrmgh,” Sorin said, and prodded one of the beers over to Veli’s side of the table. Veli snickered, and drained the beer he already had before picking up the new one. Sorin went back to glaring at his brandy. They sat quietly for a minute while they drank.

“Hy thought hyu said hyu couldn’t finish de apprenticeship becawz hyu Master couldn’t come to Castle Wulfenbach,” Veli said, finally breaking the silence. Sorin sighed.

“Yeah, but there’s no reason I couldn’t have gone back and finished once we started traveling,” he pointed out, slumping a little more in his chair. “Except I got his daughter thrown in prison and then vanished without an explanation, and I wouldn’t have been able to stay very long at any rate, and my family wasn’t there any longer, so our old contract was null and void regardless, and…” he sighed again.

“Hrm,” Veli said, taking another sip of beer. “…Hy iz not sure dat iz Miz Rozalia’s fault, though?”

“It’s her fault because if she’d not _run off with the first Spark to look at her pretty_ , none of this would have happened,” Sorin growled, glaring at Veli.

“Ah,” Veli said, finishing off the second beer and reaching for the third one. “So hyu vas just looking for someting to be mad at her about. Fair enough, she vas looking for tings to be mad at hyu about too, so.”

“Why aren’t you on my side,” Sorin snapped, draining the rest of the brandy.

“Hoy, hy iz _alvays_ on hyu side,” Veli said, nudging Sorin’s shin with a hoof. “Even vhen hyu side is dumb.”

“My side is not dumb,” Sorin said, and he was _definitely_ pouting now, angry and restless and feeling a little attacked, even though that was _completely_ irrational and he knew it.

“Iz a little bit dumb,” Veli admitted, and nudged Sorin in the shin again.

“ _You’re_ a little bit dumb,” Sorin sniped back.

“Ho, yaz,” Velimir agreed, serenely. “Hy iz not vun for de schmotts, iz vhy hy leaf all der tinking to de schmott boyz vit der schilly grudges on childhood sveethots.”

Oh god, and now Sorin was going to laugh, this whole thing was completely ridiculous. “I hope you trip into a stream and lose your hat,” he told Veli anyway. Veli gasped and clutched his heart dramatically, eyes going big and wounded.

“So cruel, und here hy vas supporting hyu in hyu ridiculous feud vit a random minion—“ Sorin gave in, putting his head on this arms and groaning to hide the grin he couldn’t stop anymore.

“Why do I put up with you,” he asked, not looking up from the table. Veli patted him on the head.

“Iz becawz hyu mamma appointed me und hyu don’t get a say,” he explained.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Sorin agreed, looking up at Velimir with a smile. Veli grinned back, amused and fond. “…Let’s get out of here, I want to move.”

* * *

“Oh, hey! Um… Sorin?” Sorin paused mid-step, turned to look behind him. That voice sounded familiar, who—oh! It was the woman from that tavern—Tamara, Sorin thought.

“Tamara,” he called, walking over to her. Veli, who’d been standing next to him and making very pointed comments about all the food stands they were passing without stopping to buy anything just half a minute ago, followed, suddenly silent. “Good to see you again.” He stopped in front of her, eying the bags she had slung over her shoulder. There was an _amazing_ smell coming from them—something cheesy and spicy. “Um… shopping?”

“I wish,” Tamara grumbled, shifting one of the bag straps a little on her shoulder. “No, this is just basic provisioning, I’m afraid. Nothing even remotely edible in the house right now. I’ll have to do the _real_ food shopping tomorrow.”

“That’s a lot of bags for one night,” Sorin pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

She blinked, and then sighed, rolling her eyes. “Oh, yeah. My father invited friends over to welcome me home.”

“With no food in the house?”

“With no food in the house. Father’s like that.”

“Heh.” Sorin shifted from foot to foot. She looked like she was struggling a little, shuffling the bags around and occasionally boosting them back up on her shoulder. “Do you want some help carrying them?” he offered. “Only, you look like you’re having some trouble.”

“Hm? Oh, no, I’m fine, I wouldn’t want to put you and your friend out,” Tamara said, politely.

“It’s no trouble,” Sorin said, glancing back at Veli to make sure that was actually true. Veli shrugged. “We don’t have anywhere in particular to be, we’ve just gotten into town, too.”

“No, really, it’s fine,” Tamara said, smiling. “Thank you, though. Um, I don’t think your friend and I met last time…” She turned to Veli, shifted her bags around to have a free hand to shake. “I’m Tamara.”

Veli reached out and shook, smiling his most charming ‘no I’m harmless really’ smile, glow almost all the way out. “I’m Velimir,” he said, and Sorin blinked as he realized Veli had dropped the accent—Oh, right, Sorin had told her Veli wasn’t a jaeger. Oh, wow, this was maybe going to get awkward... “Nice to meet you! Sorin wouldn’t introduce us last time, so mean…”

Tamara smiled, like the corners were being tugged up in spite of herself. Yeah, Sorin had been there, Veli was contagious. It was a travesty. “It kind of looked like he was actually trying to get you to come over and you were too busy eating his stew to rescue him, to be honest.”

“Bah.” Veli sniffed. “I did not need to rescue him. He has to learn to talk to de pretty girls without his hand held eventually, yes?”

“Also she’s right and you wanted to eat my dinner,” Sorin interjected, wryly.

“Lies and slander,” Velimir lied through his teeth, grinning.

“He left nothing but turnips,” Sorin told Tamara, grimacing.

“Turnips are good for you,” Veli said, haughtily.

“Because meat and the other vegetables were just terrible for me,” Sorin shot back.

“Sorin mentioned you come from here,” Veli said to Tamara, ignoring Sorin entirely. Sorin snorted.

“I do,” Tamara agreed. “I was on my way back from university when we ran into each other the first time.”

“You went to university far away, then,” Veli observed, grinning. “Wanted a change?”

Tamara smiled. “Something like that.”

“Where is university?”

“Beetleburg,” Tamara said, shrugging.

“Oh _ho_ , good school,” Veli said, raising an eyebrow.

“I like it,” Tamara demurred. “It has an excellent engineering program, which was what I was hoping to go to school for, so…”

Suddenly, Sorin was a lot more interested in the current small-talk. “You’re an engineer?”

“…Ah,” Tamara said, blinking at him—ah, maybe a bit too intense? Damn… “Yes! Well, I’m getting there.”

“That’s great!” Sorin said, grinning. “Me too! Well, I’m mostly a smith, but I’ve been branching into electrical systems for a few years now, and—oh, I read a paper the other day by Beetle about sensitive joint connections with wiring using metals other than copper, there’s a lot of really interesting work about that going on right now—“

Tamara brightened. “I took that class,” she said, grinning back at him. “I… well, a lot of it is a bit over my head—Sparkwork, you know, but the general physical side of it is really very interesting. I have to say I’m a bit partial to copper, though. The primary substitute is aluminum so far, and the terminations to aluminum wire tend to fail over time—“ Veli shifted, cleared his throat. Tamara looked over at him—Sorin looked too, what, was there a problem—and then blushed, cleared her own throat. “Sorry, Velimir. I can go on about that a bit sometimes…”

Veli blinked at her, and then laughed, sudden. “I travel with Sorin,” he pointed out. “It’s no trouble.”

“Where are you from, originally?”

“Berlin,” Veli said without missing a beat.

“Oh?” Tamara said something in a language Sorin couldn’t make heads or tails of—presumably, German. Veli laughed, and responded in the same language. Sorin raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“You do have a little bit of an accent, now that I think about it,” Tamara said, shifting her bags again. Sorin blinked. Wow, she didn’t know the _half_ of it. “Very subtle, though, I don’t think I’d have noticed if I didn’t know you were foreign.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to tell from my good looks?” Veli asked, wagging his eyebrows. Tamara laughed.

“Flirt,” Sorin teased, sotto voce. Veli made a rude gesture behind his back. Sorin snorted again.

“What about you, Sorin? What school do you go to?” Tamara asked. Sorin blinked.

“Pardon?”

“…You…said you were coming here for school,” Tamara reminded him, frowning. “I know there isn’t one _here_ , so…”

“Oh! No, I’m not going to a university,” Sorin said, shaking his head. “It’s… sort of a general apprenticeship program, I guess? Or… well, a weird hybrid of that and a journeyman working trip. I’m going around to a bunch of instructors and staying to work with them for a few weeks to a few months so they can… teach me a bit of what they do.” Sorin shrugged.

“Huh,” Tamara said. “I’ve never heard of a program like that. Are you doing that too, Velimir? Is that why you two are traveling together?”

“Nah,” Veli said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Just along for the ride.”

“Oh, okay,” Tamara said, and then paused, looking hesitant. She glanced down the road and then back again, shifting her bags to her other shoulder.

Sorin took pity. “We should let you get your food home to your guests,” he said. “But, hey, are you going to be around helping your dad for very long? I’ll probably be here for another two months, we should meet for dinner or drinks or something at some point!”

Tamara blinked, and then smirked at him. “I thought you weren’t really up to that sort of thing right now,” she said archly.

Awgh, damn it! Sorin felt his cheeks heat. Veli suddenly had a suspicious coughing fit that required him to turn away from the conversation for a second. Sorin glared at him.

“Sorry, no, I just meant… as friends, maybe?” he said, lamely. “I don’t know anyone else here, really.”

“What am I, then?” Veli asked, mock offended.

“A jerk,” Sorin said without turning to look at him. “And I am talking to Tamara right now because you were too busy laughing at me to participate. Stop interrupting.”

“So cruel,” Veli said, and Sorin could hear the pout without turning to look. He rolled his eyes at Tamara, who was pinching her lips like she was trying not to smile.

“I’d like to finish the conversation about wiring, too,” he admitted. “This lug doesn’t really get why that’s so interesting, _you_ know.”

“I do,” Tamara admitted, and gave Sorin a wry smile. “To be fair, I think it’s only interesting to people who actually have to work with wiring a lot. Alright, yes, I’d like that. We can all three of us meet up, if you want?”

“Sure,” Sorin said, glancing at Veli to check. Veli shrugged.

“Sounds like fun,” he said.

“Great! Which inn are you staying at?” Tamara asked, shifting her bags. “I’ll let you know next time I’m free for dinner or something.”

…Oh great, Sorin hadn’t thought of that. If he told her he wasn’t staying at an inn it would be only a matter of time before she figured out he was the visiting Spark, and… well, that wasn’t a secret, but he was traveling with jaegers, and they’d just lied about where Veli came from, and… urgh. _This was why he didn’t lie_.

“Why don’t you just send word to the castle?” Veli suggested. “It’s where your lessons are, right Sorin?”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Sorin said, relieved.

“Sounds good, then,” Tamara said easily. “I’ll see you around, Sorin, Velimir!”

“Bye,” Sorin said, and he and Veli watched Tamara walk away.

“Vell,” Veli said the moment she was out of earshot. “Dat vas entertaining!”

Sorin blinked, and then snorted. “It’s so _weird_ to hear you talk without an accent,” he complained. “I mean, I know you can _do_ it, but it usually means we’re about to get attacked or something and you want to make sure everyone can understand you telling them to get out of the way.”

“Ha,” Veli said, and put Sorin in a headlock, turning them in the opposite direction Tamara had gone in. “Hyu own fault for telling her hy iz not a jaeger. Und now hyu have to listen to me talk vitout mine accent for a whole dinner, too!”

“Let go, you big oaf,” Sorin complained, elbowing Veli in the ribs and admittedly not making all that much of an effort to get free. “I didn’t realize I’d ever see her again when I said that! People panic when I tell them I’m traveling with a jaeger on the road, I can’t imagine _why_ …” Velimir grinned, smug, and loosened his hold on Sorin’s neck so Sorin could escape. Sorin did, reluctantly. “Anyway,” he said, “you didn’t have to play along. Berlin? Really? Why Berlin?”

“Vhy not Berlin?” Veli asked, shrugging. “Hy speak preddy goot German, so.”

“Fair enough,” Sorin allowed. “What did you two say to each other?”

“Hm?”

“When you were speaking German,” Sorin explained.

“Oh. Don’t remember,” Veli admitted. “Hy tink she said she speaks a liddle ov de dialect, und hy said her accent vas goot, or someting.”

“Was it good?” Sorin asked, vaguely curious.

“Vas hokay,” Veli said. “Hyu could hardly hear it, bot den hyu could hardly hear it in Romanian, so.”

“I didn’t notice an accent,” Sorin said, blinking. Veli stopped walking and turned and looked at him for a minute, neutral. Sorin stopped too, raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Veli hesitated, then shook his head, smiling a little. “Notting to vorry about,” he said. “Hy just…” He pinched his lips. “Hyu still feel veird about her?”

Sorin frowned. “Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about it,” he admitted, trying to think back. Hmmmm... “Why?”

Veli shrugged. “Iz probably nothing, den. Really,” he added, when Sorin frowned at him. “Hyu go ahead und keep making friends, kiddo. Iz mine job to be paranoid, remember?”

“…Yeah,” Sorin said. “Okay.”

“Hokay,” Veli echoed, and bumped their shoulders together. “Now, let’s go und get some dinner. Hy dunno vat she had in dat bag, but now hy iz _starving_.”

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

_13_

_Piece of paper with a black scribble of a woman-shaped stick figure. The figure has brown zigzags indicating curly hair next to a jaeger head wearing what is distinctly Veli’s hat. The jaeger is eying the stick figure sideways with a frowning mouth_.

_Beneath the two figures is another four stick figures, this time in red. Three of the figures are clearly meant to be women, considering they all appear to be wearing triangle dresses, but the varying length and level of hair-scribble and different proportions of their chest balloons indicate they are all different people. The fourth figure has pointy teeth, an equally pointy triangle-hat with a feather that may be Lyubo’s from a certain point of view, and a question mark for a mouth. The whole four-figure sketch is wreathed in more red question marks._

_Underneath in various colors, thicknesses, and styles are several arrows pointing to this second sketch with more question marks._

_To the right of that is a sketch in lead depicting a surprisingly true-to-life portrait of Tamara._

_In the corner of this is a black sketch of a jaeger in Veli’s hat. The jaeger has a speech bubble that says “thenk hyu zbignev!!!!” An arrow leads from the first female stick figure to the lead drawing in the same black ink._

_All of the figures appear to be sporting blue moustaches._

* * *

_14_

“…the most condescending, holier-than-thou, _arrogant_ , _egotistical jerk_ —“

Veli’s head snapped up, eyebrows hitting his hairline as the door _slammed_ open and Sorin stomped through, practically _spitting_ venom as he went. Blazh trailed in after him, hands in his pockets, face so neutral he might as well have been cackling.

“’Wipe down your station before you leave it!’” Sorin whined, voice going high and nasal, arms flailing in aggravation. “‘Turn off that Bunsen burner, were you raised in a barn?’ ‘Put those gloves back on, do you even know where that cadaver has been?’ Sweet _lightning_ , I am going to— _What_?” he snapped, rounding on Veli. Veli pinched his lips together to make it very clear he had nothing to say, and certainly none of it had anything to do with the difference between working in a forge and working with subjects that could get poisoned or infected or sepsis, and shook his head. Sorin narrowed his eyes. “ _No_ , you have something to say! Go on, say it!”

“Hy have nothing to say, boss,” Veli said.

“ _You’re thinking it_ ,” Sorin shouted, crossing his arms. Behind Sorin, Blazh eased his way back out of the room. _Traitor,_ Veli thought as hard as he could. “Think she has a _point_? Think I need someone standing over my shoulder _babysitting my lab procedures_? Is that it?”

“No?” Veli tried.

“ _You’re damn right, I don’t_ ,” Sorin bellowed, and then stormed into his room and slammed the door shut. A few seconds later, something solid thunked into the door, and then something else shattered.

Veli waited a full five minutes, listening to Sorin thoroughly trash his room and then guiltily start to rebuild it, and then he walked over to the door Blazh had snuck out of and poked his head through. Blazh was leaning against the opposite wall, every inch of him casually unconcerned.

Which from Blazh usually meant Veli was about to get a lot of extra work to do, so Veli walked the rest of the way out, closed the door behind him, and crossed his arms.

“...So, Miz Rozalia und Master Sorin dun get along,” Blazh tried, cheerfully.

“Hyu dun say,” Veli drawled.

“Und iz probably goot hyu pulled Dario out, hy dun tink he vould haff been able to keep hiz fat mouth schot.”

“Hy iz not sure hyu did much better.”

“Hy deedn’t say ennyting! Iz not mine fault she vos hoverink over Master Sorin’s shoulder und criticizink efferyting he did, ve iz not supposed to get involved in de lessons—“

“Just enjoying de mayhem, den,” Veli suggested, wryly. “Iz fine, hy iz not scolding hyu. Iz he actually gonna learn anyting or should hy see if ve can drop a suggestion dat Miz Rozalia find someting else to vork on vhile Master Sorin iz here?”

“Eh,” Blazh shrugged. “Iz goot for him to have to learn to deal vit all types of people! He iz gonna haff to, probably, hy dun tink he iz gun go moch for der ‘burn it down’ type ov politicks…”

“Hm…” Veli sighed. That was… maybe a point. Sorin’s current approach to political situations he wasn’t actively starting himself tended to be ‘ignore them until they went away’, which… Well, actually, there _had_ been Heterodynes who took that approach, but they’d at least been aware that they were doing it. Veli kind of thought Sorin hadn’t really internalized it yet.

Which meant that dealing with a minion he hated but couldn’t get rid of because she served the Spark teaching him would be good practice. Also that they maybe needed to look into finding more durable versions of the things in Sorin’s bedroom, and that Dario was never going to be allowed to take a lesson shift. Oh well. “Hokay, congratulations, hyu iz on lesson duty for de next two months vit Andrej und Zbignev. In fact...” Hm… if he just switched Dario and Andrej’s schedules, and moved Stani to night shift so Zbignev could take her day shifts… “Hyu iz getting all de midday shifts except de veekends,” Veli told him.

“Aw…”

“Dun complain, at least iz not patrolling de castle,” Veli said, grinning. “Or writing reports! Actually, hy iz villing to trade hyu tree reports for tree lesson duties, und hy even trow in a night shift!”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Blazh said. “All de midday shifts, ken’t vait.”

Veli laughed. “Demn. Ah, vell, dun let him blow her up, he vill just feel bad about it vhen he calms down.”

“Hyu got it, boss.”

* * *

_As the new Captain of the Honor Guard of the only Sparky Heterodyne heir, Veli’s first responsibility was to select, track down, and ask all the rest of the jaegers who would make up the Guard._

_That sounded pretty simple, except for the fact that Honor Guard duty was traditionally something everyone avoided like the plague. Who wanted to be stuck delegating the fun bits, or prioritizing a target over rampant destruction, after all? No jaeger Veli had ever met, that was for damn sure. He wouldn’t be able to count on just putting the word out and letting people come to him…_

_Veli hadn’t even told his own squad yet—well, his former squad now. Wow, it really was, too! As a Captain he wouldn’t even be able to go back after the Guard was disbanded, some faraway day from now._

_Well, Veli thought, brushing the sudden sadness off, it had only been about three hours since his sudden promotion. At the very least, he should have time to grab something to eat before diving in!_

_Stanislava cornered him in the mess hall. “Hy vant to be on de Guard,” she declared, and then stood there expectantly while he choked on his sandwich and stared gobsmacked at her for the next two or three minutes._

_“How did hyu even hear alreddy?” Veli asked incredulously. “Hy_ just _left de meeting vit de Generals.”_

_“Guard et de door told efferyvun,” Stani said negligently, and Veli very nearly dropped his head to the desk and groaned. Well, there went the possibility that he’d be able to ambush people and ask them before the whole army found out what was happening._

_“…Hokay,” he said finally. “Sure, who am hy to turn down a volunteer! Uh, vhy iz hyu volunteering?”_

_Stani shrugged. “Hy vos supposed to be on Master Barry’s Guard,” she said frankly. “De Generals let Master Villiam und Master Barry talk dem out ov it, bot hyu iz putting togedder de Guard for real dis time. So. Hy vant to be on it.”_

_Well then. “Dat’s fair,” Veli admitted. “Hokay, jah, velcome to de Guard. Hyu met him yet?”_

_“Nope,” Stani said, even as she started to smile—excited. Veli guessed that was good, really. First jaeger on the Guard actually wanted to be there! Excellent sign._

_“Hyu should. He iz in de third lab in de Secure Ving on de tventieth level. Hy’d go und vait if hy vos hyu, he’s breaking through so iz sort ov a ‘grab hiz attention vhen hyu can’ thing.”_

_“Hokay,” Stani said cheerfully, and slung her mace over her shoulder before turning and walking away, a definite spring in her step. “Enjoy hyu lunch, Captain!”_

_Veli watched her go, feeling more than a little blindsided. The whole exchange had taken less than three minutes._

_He’d have to go and talk to Sarge Drazhan sooner rather than later. Veli wanted him to hear the news from_ him _instead of on the grape vine. The old bulldog would probably be pleased, even, in hindsight Veli kind of thought he’d been training him._

 _‘Captain’, though. Ugh._ That _was going to take some getting used to…_

* * *

_17_

“…So then… then the professor says, ‘I don’t care who took it, could whoever currently has a… “certain object” please put it back on my desk by the end of the lesson—‘” Tamara dissolved into giggles, joining Sorin who was _doubled over_ his plate, gasping for breath as he laughed. “’I will just… turn around’,” she continued, between cackles. “’—and you can just slip it back onto the desk, no questions asked—‘”

Veli stepped behind the door, still holding all three drink refills, and grinned at the ceiling. Okay, Tamara was probably a spy, but he supposed they didn’t _have_ to hold it against her.

* * *

_19_

“Hoy boss,” Veli called, sticking his head into Sorin’s caterpillar forge. Sorin paused mid swing and looked up, hammer half a foot off the metal thing he’d been working on like it weighed nothing.

“Hm?” he asked, eyes sharpening as he focused on Veli. “Is the Doctor ready?”

“Naw,” Veli said, forcing his eyes off Sorin’s arm muscles – and damn that shirt the other week for making Veli _notice_ how nice Sorin’s arms were, life wasn’t fair – and back onto his face. “Just a letter for hyu.”

Sorin smiled immediately. “Oh! Give me a second to finish this so I don’t have to start all over, I’ll be right there.”

“Sure,” Veli agreed, and ducked back out again. He leaned back against the side of the front car and relaxed, listening idly to the now familiar sound of rhythmic hammering of metal, then the hiss of heated metal hitting water. A few minutes later Sorin ducked out of the car, tugging his gloves off and shoving them into his belt as he went.

“Who’s it from,” he asked, reaching Veli and holding out a hand the letter. Velimir handed it over.

“Hy dunno, hyu mamma forwarded it from Castle Wulfenbach. Vat iz hyu vorking on so long anyvay, hyu just schpent five hours out here.”

“Huh.” Sorin broke the seal on the letter, opened it up. “Tamara says nickel will never be a good enough conductor to be a substitute for copper without considerable modification into an alloy and I want to see if she’s right, is all.”

...Okay…Well, it was good that Sorin was making friends with someone who was neither one of his guards nor living on a dirigible that Sorin spent the majority of his time avoiding having to go back to, Veli supposed. Even if she _was_ a spy. He watched as Sorin started scanning the letter quickly, clearly ready to get back to his wires.

Then his eyebrows went up, and he visibly went back to the beginning of the letter and started reading the whole thing again, more slowly. He started to hum halfway down the page.

“Huh,” he said finally. “Wow.”

That didn’t sound good. “Everyting hokay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Sorin said, not looking up from his letter. He leaned back against the metal side of the caterpillar, unconsciously mirroring Veli. “It’s… well, I assume it’s good news. A friend from Vulkanburg is getting married.”

“Oh.” Okay…

“Mm,” Sorin said. “He’s asked me to stand up with him as best man.”

…Huh. “A very goot friend, den?” Veli hazarded. Sorin didn’t really get letters from anyone in Vulkanburg, though Veli assumed he must have had _some_ friends there, considering he’d spent the first nineteen years of his life in the same small town.

“Heh. Yeah.” Sorin smiled, wryly. “And also I maybe wanted to kiss him on the face for the vast majority of my teenage years. Which he has no idea about, because he is both definitely not an invert and sort of oblivious.” He shrugged. “He was a good friend anyway, it was just… a thing. That was true for a while.”

…Ah. “Hyu upset he’s gettink married?” Veli asked carefully.

Sorin grinned, suddenly. Snorted. “Maybe on behalf of his wife. Luca’s a bit thick sometimes. I’m thinking I should send her a note with my condolences, only…” He paused again, frowned at the letter. “I don’t actually know her. Or… well, maybe I did and I don’t remember? It’s weird.”

Veli blinked. Send a letter? “Hyu iz not going to go und be in de vedding?”

Sorin sighed, put the letter down, staring off into the middle distance instead. “…No. I don’t know, I’d have to leave _right now_ to even get there on time—“

“Hy tink de Doctor vould let hyu do dat,” Veli pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “Iz a vedding! Iz not someting dat happens every day...”

“…Yeah, but…” Sorin trailed off, frowning. “I haven’t really _talked_ to Luca since I left, and…” He sighed. “Luca doesn’t know I’m a Heterodyne, which… well, when I decided not to tell him it made sense, because I was writing a letter explaining why I couldn’t go home and everyone was telling horror stories about it being intercepted, right? And it didn’t feel like that big a lie of omission at the time, anyway, and… I didn’t want to drag all my old friends straight into international politics just because _I_ had suddenly found myself there? Ugh, I don’t know…” he growled, banged his head back into the side of the wall, like that would knock the problem loose.

“Hoy,” Veli said. “Dun scramble hyu big brain over it, now. Hy tink hyu can get out ov it vitout giving hyuself a concussion.”

“Har har,” Sorin said, rolling his eyes. “Not your best effort.”

Veli grinned, mulling over what Sorin was saying was the problem. “…Feels like more of a lie now?” he ventured. He doubted it was the not wanting to make them deal with politics bit. _Sorin_ didn’t even want to deal with politics, and had so far done an excellent job pretending that part of being a Heterodyne didn’t exist.

“Mm. It’d be awkward to try to explain, and…” Sorin sighed, shook his head, looked up at Veli. “No, that’s not even it. Who cares if I’m lying to him about that, I lie to everyone about that. I just don’t want to go.”

…Well, then! “Guess vatching de guy hyu had a crush on get married _vould_ be awkward,” he said, dubiously.

“No, I told you, it’s not that,” Sorin insisted. “I was under zero illusions about that the entire time, this isn’t me being upset about… losing something I never had or whatever silly thing you’re thinking. It’s… it’s that I have no desire to go back to _Vulkanburg_!”

…Okay, now Veli was confused. “Hy don’t get it,” he admitted.

“Me neither! It’s ridiculous, it’s my hometown, I haven’t seen it in years…” Sorin made a frustrated noise, looked at Veli like maybe he could read the answer in his face. “Maybe that’s it? It kind of feels like it belongs to someone else’s life, and going back and finding it not as… home as I remember it would be…” he chewed on his lip, looked up at Veli. “I sound like a selfish jerk,” he admitted. Veli shrugged, so what? Sorin snorted, then paused again, mouth scrunched up as he tried to think it through. He sighed out an exhale that turned into another hum at the end. Veli bit down on the _it doesn’t matter_ , made himself wait. Clearly it _did_ matter for some reason. To Sorin, at least.

“I keep thinking, okay, so you go for, what, a week? No big deal, it’s a wedding, weddings are fun, you get to see everyone again… and then I think about the big gate, and the big sloping bowl with no way out, and…”

“…And?”

“And I feel like I’d just want to turn right back around and camp outside the walls.” Sorin huffed. “It just… the _idea_ of it is claustrophobic, I don’t know. I keep thinking… I spent so much of my childhood preparing to live a life that…” He looked up at Velimir again. “Is it possible to feel trapped in retrospect?”

“…Yes,” Veli said, and nudged him. “Hy tink it is.”

Sorin nodded. “…Anyway, so there’s that,” he continued, “and there’s the fact that I _don’t know the woman he’s marrying_. What would I even say to her? ‘Hi! I’m Sorin! I hear you are marrying my childhood best friend! Congratulations on your new husband’s cute butt and dimples—‘”

Veli sputtered, started to laugh—couldn’t help it. “Mebbe not,” he finally said. “Hy tink she might take it wrong.”

Sorin grinned again. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, yes, it’s official, I’m not going. I’ll send a letter back saying I’m too far and can’t get away, and I’ll make them a wedding gift. What do you give people for weddings?”

“…Hy dunno,” Veli said. “Useful tings?”

“Maybe I can make them a tableware set,” Sorin mused. “I’ve got all that chromium steel just sitting around…”

Oh god, the chromium steel. Sorin had gotten really enthusiastic about that when it first made it this far east, and bought enough of it to build a small _house_ out of it, and then refused to use anything else for, like, a month. And then, in typical Spark fashion, he’d lost interest, and the stuff had been weighing the caterpillar down unnecessarily ever since. So, really, any excuse to get it out of Sorin’s forge… “Dat sounds like it vould be nice,” Veli said.

“Mm.” Sorin tilted his head, eyes unfocusing a little—oh boy, Veli knew that look. “Well, but steel is sort of… it conducts heat, that’s not that great for food… what if I tempered it so that it maintained a specific temperature… oh, maybe I could take that a little further and have it keep what’s placed on it about the same temperature…” Sorin’s eyes shone. “Oh, that’s a good idea, actually, I bet if I just…”

Veli patted Sorin on the shoulder, somehow managing not to laugh. Good thing the Doctor was done with Sorin for the day… “Sounds goot, boss,” he said. “Ve’ll send you some dinner later, hokay?”

Sorin was already gone. “Mm,” he said, obviously not really registering a _word_ that came out of Veli’s mouth. “Yeah, okay, I’m just going to…” and he turned to look at the doors to his forge, fidgety and sharp and bright and breathtaking.

Veli smiled. “Go,” he said, and then he stood there, leaning against Sorin’s portable caterpillar forge, and watched him slip away.

* * *

_22_

“No,” Veli said.

“Yes,” Sorin replied, and walked into the library.

Veli followed, obviously. “Bot vhat do hyu even _need_ in here right now,” he whined. “Hyu dun need anodder book, hyu have _nine_ medical books right now in hyu room.”

“Well, yes,” Sorin said, continuing to walk despite Veli’s protestations. “None of them are on the subject I _need_ though—well, okay, actually the Levi covers what I need—“

“See?”

“—But it’s just for beginners,” Sorin continued. “It doesn’t even name all the arteries and veins going in and out of the liver! How am I supposed to shout Rozalia down tomorrow if I can’t even name all the arteries and veins attached to the liver?”

“Mebbe hyu should try _not shouting at her_ ,” Veli suggested.

“I will when she does.”

“Und also mebbe ve should actually go to the post office like hyu said hyu vanted to do—“

“Sorin?”

Veli choked on the end of his sentence as Tamara waved from a corner table, closing the huge tome she had presumably been reading. How was this girl _everywhere_ suddenly? What in the seven Hells?

“Tamara!” Sorin stopped his forward momentum (a damn miracle) and smiled like the sun coming out, waving back. Veli’s annoyance immediately fled to the Orient, where it took up residence as a fisherman and raised a small family. He followed Sorin over to Tamara’s table, feeling sort of helplessly deflated. All right, Tamara, great, bring on the dumb non-Mechanicsburg accent, and never mind the fact that Tamara absolutely must have heard them talking on the way in.

Tamara looked like she was still willing to play along, anyway. She smiled at Veli a little sheepishly, nodded hello, before turning back to Sorin. Heh, it was really too bad she was a spy, Veli might actually get to like her otherwise. “I don’t usually see you in the library! Research project for your… apprenticeship?”

“Ah…” And now Sorin looked embarrassed, blushing a little and looking away. D’awww. “Sort of? Ah, maybe… maybe a self-imposed research project…”

“He wants to one-up Doctor von Elbe’s chief minion,” Veli supplied, helpfully. Sorin elbowed him right in the ribs without looking. Veli oophed for effect and then tried not to look too obviously proud of Sorin for getting better at that particular maneuver. Needed to tell Premisl later…

“What are you working on,” Sorin asked, sliding into the seat in front of her and tilting his head to look at the title of the book. He paused halfway through the motion. “Um, unless I’m disturbing you, in which case you can tell us to go away.”

Tamara laughed. “No, please, distract me,” she said. “I’m just trying to find an article from an engineer I really admire—this is the annual volume of Beetleburg’s _Journal of Non-Sparky Applied Engineering_ , so I thought maybe they’d have it in here, but actually I think it came out in the monthly volume after this one.”

“Huh, maybe I have it,” Sorin suggested, looking at the year. “Mmm… well, I have the first three months from this year, but I spent the last few months too far for the monthlies to ship just yet. What article are you looking for?”

“Ah, I don’t know if you read it,” Tamara said. “He’s… not very well-known yet, but really I think it’s only a matter of time, he’s just _brilliant_ at explaining the underlying equations for different systems reacting! He did this one absolutely fascinating hypothetical where he added water power to an automated interface—“

“Wait,” Sorin interrupted, eyes going increasingly wide. “Are you talking about _Rolphe Volker_?”

Tamara’s mouth fell open. “You read him?”

“I practically _memorized_ his article on harnessing wind and water power to automate coal production.” Sorin leaned forward, grinning bright and excited. “You’re talking about the waterfall article, right? That was _amazing_ , it was such a great way to show that concept!”

Tamara lit up like someone had shoved a torch down her throat. “ _Yes_ ,” she said, leaning forward in a near mirror to Sorin. “That article got me through my water power course, I swear! I just reapplied the section on pistons every time my Professor called on me—“ Sorin laughed, like this was some sort of fantastic joke. Veli blinked very slowly, and decided it may be time to tune out.

“Oh, I’m so glad he’s not a Spark,” Tamara said, and Veli changed his mind.

“I _am_ a Spark,” Sorin said ( _damn_ it! Self-preservation instincts of a _frustrated lemming_ …), “and _I_ am glad he’s not a Spark. I have _read_ Sparks trying to explain what they’re doing, and it makes perfect sense to me, but only after I make an effort, you know? Volker’s work is something you can really build a _foundation_ for something new off of, it’s just the straightforward _facts_ about how things will react without any tinkering! It’s amazing.”

“Oh man, _wait_ until I tell my friend Lila that I met a Spark who agrees with me about Volker,” Tamara said, eyes shining with glee and honest-to-god mischief, for once not obviously too restrained and polite to be truly genuine. “She is going to _eat_ everything she ever said about him.”

Sorin snorted, smile somehow even wider and eyes alight with… like he-- “You’ll show them all?”

“Muahahaha,” Tamara said, and then started laughing for real. Sorin laughed with her.

Veli let himself relax, finally, and resigned himself to spending the rest of the afternoon in the library watching Sorin have fun with a friend.

Probably there were worse things, really.

* * *

_23_

Veli was conducting a very delicate operation. It required dexterity, finesse, and exact timing. He frowned, carefully easing another piece into place—slowly, slowly, easy does it, almost there…

The door slammed open. Veli jumped. So did Snappy, buzzing in alarm, which sent the pyramid of ink wells balanced on Snappy’s head toppling over, spewing ink all down Snappy’s head and torso. Snappy spun in a full circle as the ink spread over its “eyes” sensors and went careening off into a couch, bouncing back onto its clank butt and _whining_ in distress. Veli jumped to his feet. “It vasn’t me,” he said. “Iz Snappy’s fault, he—oh, iz hyu, Zbignev.” Veli relaxed, squatting back down to right Snappy. Hrm, going to have to clean off the ink before replacing Snappy’s hat now, darn.

“No, hy really vant to know how dis iz Snappy’s fault,” Zbignev said, grinning.

“He shocked me becawz hy tripped over him und made me spill mine ink,” Veli said, finishing up wiping Snappy’s eyes off and standing so he could properly cross his arms and scowl.

“Ah, yaz, clearly der only possible response vos to create en ink pyramid on hiz head,” Zbignev said, nodding sagely. “Hy iz right dere vit hyu, boss, pliz dun let me interrupt.”

“Keep talking,” Veli suggested. “Hy iz svimming in papervork und not afraid to share!”

“Hy iz preddy sure dot’s abuse of power,” Zbignev pointed out.

“Naw,” Veli said, grinning. “Hyu iz mine second in command, hyu could _absolutely_ do some ov de papervork.”

“Hy iz verra sorry for teasing hyu und also hy remember hy haff to do sumtin on de odder side of de Kestle,” Zbignev replied, and started inching his way towards the door. “Hy see hyu iz verra busy, _sir_ , hy ken giff mine report later, hy iz chust—ow! Hoy!”

Snappy buzzed triumphantly from behind Zbignev, spat another bolt of lightning for good measure at the back of the leg Zbignev was about to trip over him with, and then zipped off towards the desk, every inch the injured party. Veli cracked up. “Goot boy,” he told the little clank. “Thenk hyu.”

“Und here hy vos defending hyu honor,” Zbignev scolded, putting his hands on his hips. “Ketch me doing _dot_ again…” Snappy buzzed at them, and then turned around and rammed right into the side of the desk. Veli and Zbignev winced.

“…Maybe hy should clean him off,” Veli said, and knelt down to crawl under the desk too.

“Hyu vant a towel or sumtin?” Zbignev asked.

“Yez, thenks,” Veli called, and then turned back to the clank. “Hoy dere, Snappy, ve play a game.” Snappy turned and looked at Veli, head tilted. “Goot. Now, _freeze_.” Snappy froze in place obediently. “Diagnostic test,” Veli continued, and Snappy started bending every joint one by one, buzzing cheerfully as he did until he got to his head. Here he froze and whined sadly. “Demn,” Veli muttered. “Hokay, Snappy, hyu come here und ve hope ve can clean de ink out of hyu befur Sorin gets back, hokay? Come—“ Snappy made a noise that wasn’t so much a buzz as an obvious raspberry and then shot out from under the desk.

“Hoy!” Veli lunged after him, missed, and landed face first in the carpet. “ _Freeze_ ,” he snapped, and Snappy froze in place mid-step and toppled forward onto the carpet as well. It buzzed sadly, and then shot lightning at the floor. “No! Hyu iz gonna schtart a fire, hyu—“ Veli pulled himself to his feet and stomped over to the clank, lifting it upright and facing away from him. Snappy spun its legs in an attempt to escape, buzzing in alarm now. “Hyu iz nothing bot trouble,” Veli muttered. “Hy iz glad hy dumped ink on hyu, it serves hyu right.” He reached up with one hand and switched off the lightning spitter. “Dere. Hoy, Zbignev, vhere iz dat towel?”

“Hold on,” Zbignev called back, “hy iz trying to find a good vun—oh, heh. Hokay, ve use dis vun.” He came out holding a towel and grinning fit to burst. Veli narrowed his eyes at the towel.

“…Iz dat Premisl’s towel?”

“Jah.”

“He’s gonna get ink smeared on all his tings.”

“Mm hmm…”

“Sold,” Veli said, and reached for the towel. Zbignev handed it over. “So gimme hyu report, den. Did he keel Miz Rozalia yet?”

“Nope, bot ve all live in hope,” Zbignev told him, grinning. “Vot iz dot all about, ennyvay? Master Sorin iz usually all vit de live-und-let-live und de civility und tings, bot hy keep vaiting for him to light a bomb under her!”

Veli shrugged, turned Snappy to poke a corner of the towel into a joint. Snappy buzzed and spun his legs to escape. “Iz hiz ex-girlfriend, hy dunno.”

Zbignev bopped him on the head. “No, really, dot iz a revelatshon ov de highest proportions, thenk all seven ov de Popes ve haff hyu to clear dese tings op for os. Vot’s de _schtory_?”

“Hy don’t gossip about mine Master’s private business,” Veli lied, sticking his nose in the air. He ducked when Zbignev tried to bop him again, and grinned. “Hokay, hokay. Apparently dey vas in talks for marriage und den Miz Rozalia called it off und ran off vit Vulkanburg’s Spark to minion for her vhile de Viscountess made de big illegal veapon Master Sorin found vhen hy meet him.”

Zbignev hummed thoughtfully, lips twisting up as he thought about that. “Vhy did she call it off, den?”

Velimir shrugged again. “Vell, hy iz guessing he didn’t schpend all dat much time learning how to properly handle a titty.”

“Ha!” Zbignev leaned back, crossing his arms and giving Veli a pointed look. “Verra true! Hy bet he didn’t effen notice if she vos showing dem off for hendling, ektually. Master Sorin barely effen notices vhen de _boyz_ flirt vit him!”

“…No bet,” Veli said, and sighed. “Ennyvay, so she left heem for another Spark und he got dat Spark thrown in prison und here ve are.”

“…Dot’s fair,” Zbignev said. “So ve definitely dun like her.”

“Nope,” Veli agreed, and stuck Snappy between his knees to hold the clank still while he poked at neck joints with the towel.

“Goot ting, becawz if she keeps correcting effery leedle ting Master Sorin does in de lab he iz gun build a clank to trow her out de vindow.”

“Ha!” Veli grinned. “Fun!”

“Hy thought hyu vos against de minion defehnehztration.”

“Hy have done vat hy can,” Veli said, sniffing haughtily. “If he trows her out de vindow anyvay hy iz just gonna enjoy de carnage.”

Zbignev snorted. “Dot’s fair,” he said. “Ennyvay… oh, so Master Sorin haz de rest ov de veek off from training becawz de Doctor iz going out ov town tonight.”

“Ho?”

“Mm, iz a personal ting. Hiz first effer construct iz vanting babies vit her partner, und de Doctor iz traveling out to get dem scharted,” Zbignev explained. “Master Sorin vent all goopy, bah.” Veli laughed. Aw, Sorin and babies. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about the line anymore once he sucked it up and got married… Oh, hey, he could probably give Blazh a break, too! Chestibor was starting to get bored on patrol duty, maybe Veli could switch them up for the next week…

“Hy tink a few ov de odderz iz takink him out tonight,” Zbignev continued, casually, “since he iz not in de lab tomorrow, by de vay.”

Veli blinked, mentally switching gears. “Hokay…”

“Mm, dey figure iz a goot chance to schteal Master Sorin back from hyu, since hyu iz monopolizing all hiz free time dis veek und hyu haff to finish hyu reports tonight ennyvay.” Zbignev gave Veli a pointed look.

…Oh.

Veli turned back to Snappy, scrubbed at an ink stain on Snappy’s head very studiously, making sure he’d gotten all the corners.

It wasn’t a secret or anything, how Velimir felt about their Master. Veli wasn’t sure how it could have been. He’d been pretty unsubtle about the initial crush, really, and after…

…Well, jaegerkin on a whole didn’t have a lot of protocol, but there was absolutely protocol for getting too personally close to a Heterodyne. The protocol was “don’t.” Since Veli had blown that straight to hell, he’d kind of figured the rest of the Guard had a right to know, at least so they’d been able to object to Veli further stomping all over protocol by _not leaving_.

So far, it had worked out alright, but… Well. Veli wasn’t fooling himself that the situation wasn’t delicate. For example, he hadn’t even _noticed_ that he’d been monopolizing Sorin’s time this week, but Zbignev was absolutely right that he had.

“…Jah,” he said finally, paying very careful attention to cleaning off Snappy. “Hy iz gonna be doing dis all night, probably. Hy haff all de reports to finish from Portview, too.”

“Especially iffen Snappy keeps distracting hyu,” Zbignev offered.

“Mm.”

“Hokay, so hy tell de odders hyu iz schtaying in?”

“Yup,” Veli said. “Und tell Milosh he iz on bodyguard duty, vill hyu?”

“Hyu got it.” Zbignev stood up. “Hy go right now.”

“Sounds goot,” Veli said, still carefully looking over Snappy.

“…Boss,” Zbignev said.

“Hm?”

“…Hyu missed a spot.”

Veli reached over and grabbed the first thing he could find off the side table—a coffee table book. Why did they even have a coffee table book—and chucked it at Zbignev’s head. Zbignev lunged out the door and slammed it closed right before impact, and then took off cackling. Veli dropped Snappy and chased after him, inky towel in hand.

Oh, well, he had all night to finish the reports, revenge was clearly much more pressing.

* * *

_0_

“Awgh! What the—“

Veli dropped his pen and was across the room and through Sorin’s door in about two seconds, which was just enough time to watch as Sorin crushed a spider between his palms and crossed his arms as he glared into the closet. His bare arms. And bare back. Because Sorin wasn’t wearing a shirt. Huh…

“Just what I needed,” Sorin muttered, “I think there’s a spider infestation in here! I just pulled one off me, and there’s another three I can see on this wall. They’re all pretty small, too.”

Veli dragged his attention back onto what Sorin was saying. “Hyu baby, hyu screamed dat loud because hyu found a spider on hyu?”

“It bit me,” Sorin grumbled, and leaned back into the closet, rummaging for a shirt that presumably was spider-free. His shoulder and back muscles flexed as he moved things around, which... Smith work really had treated Sorin well, wow. Veli completely sympathized with the spider.

“Oh, poor hyu, a bug bite, vhat a hardship,” he said, a beat too slow. “Hyu know, if hyu stopped yelling at Miz Rozalia for half a minute, hyu could probably mention hyu have a spider hatch in hyu closet und she could arrange someting to clean it up…”

“You’re funny,” Sorin said flatly, and took out a shirt, checking it quickly for spiders before pulling it on. Awww…

“Hyu iz de vun complaining about de spiders,” Veli pointed out.

“I can’t be annoyed about spiders in my closet without having to kowtow to someone who hates me?”

“Hy don’t tink she is going to tink vorse of hyu for not vanting bitey spiders on hyu clothes, though.”

“Only because she can’t think worse of me anyway,” Sorin grumbled, and sat down to pull back on his boots. He looked back up at Veli, absently pushing some curls off his forehead, quirked a smile. “…You sure you don’t want to come tonight?” he asked again, for at least the third time.

“Nah,” Veli said again. “Hy told hyu, too much papervork still. If hy don’t lock mineself in tonight hy iz never going to do it, und den hy have to do _more_ papervork explaining vhere de first bits ov papervork iz. Iz an endless papervork cycle ov horror und misery.”

Sorin snorted. “I have no sympathy for you,” he informed Veli. “You only have this much because you ignored it for so long.”

“Vun day hyu find me crushed under de piles ov papervork, und den hyu vill be sorry for mocking me,” Veli informed him, giving Sorin his best wounded look.

“If you say so. Don’t take your boredom out on Snappy, though, it’s not its fault that you’ve let this go so long!”

“Iz probably _hyu_ fault,” Veli said. “Hyu keep setting hyuself on fire, iz someting like three more pages every time.”

“Complain, complain,” Sorin said, and grinned wide enough to show his dimples. “Don’t set myself on fire, don’t jump off high buildings, what _am_ I allowed to do, Captain?”

“Hm…” Veli pursed his lips. Sorin raised an eyebrow. “Hy iz tinking!”

Sorin laughed, rolled his eyes as he stood up. “Jerk. Okay, I’m leaving, enjoy your super fun paperwork.”

“Shore ting,” Veli said easily, stepping out of the door so Sorin could pass. “See hyu later!”

Sorin waved, pulling on a jacket, and then slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Veli stood there for another minute, feeling strangely melancholy, and then shook himself and went to do his paperwork.

* * *

“Hoy, Stani! Vhere’s de boss?”

“He found a nize boy at de tavern. Ve left so ve schtop cramping hiz schtyle—Veli?”

“Hm?”

“…Milosh schtayed.”

“Mm. Good. Great! Hyu know vhat, hy iz starving, hy iz going to go… down to de… hy guess de kitchens, haha! Hy dun vant to end up at de same tavern, dat vould—hy…”

“…Hyu vant a drinking buddy? Hy tink dere’s anodder tavern down Main Street a vays, Master Sorin probably von’t go dere.”

“…Jah, hokay.”

* * *

Veli and Stani stumbled home at four in the morning, drunk and tired and, in Veli’s case, unnecessarily morose, and Sorin was still not back. Veli spent about thirty seconds considering the pros and cons of crying like a child, and then went to pass out instead.

He woke up four hours later when the sun finally hit the correct angle to shine right into his face, still a little drunk and definitely hung over and, unsurprisingly, still in love with his Heterodyne and unlikely to have it resolve itself any time soon. He groaned, head pounding, and curled into a little ball, pressed his head to his knees and waited for the dizziness to abate enough for him to risk opening his eyes.

“Hyu tink _hyu_ had a long night,” Milosh’s voice cut through the silence, far too wry for how much like a knife it felt on Veli’s poor eardrums. “ _Hy_ had to schtand outside a room all night leestening to mine Master’s _sex noises_. Urgh.”

 _I’m not dying_ , Veli thought bleakly. _Death would be kinder_. “Thenk hyu, Milosh,” he muttered to his knees, “for dat perspective on de situashon.”

“Shore ting, _Captain_ ,” Milosh said. “Hyu vant mine report? Only, hy got in at about six-tirtee dis morning und hy vant to go to schleep.”

Veli forced himself to think about that for a minute… Yeah, he really should take the report. Because he was in charge. On the other hand, he absolutely did not want to know _anything_ Milosh might have to say. Hrm… “Did anyting happen dat Master Sorin’s mamma or de Generals vould need to know about?”

“Nope,” Milosh said, and yawned.

“Hokay,” Velimir said, and then opened his eyes and rolled out of bed. He landed on his feet and _slowly_ stood up. “Don’t tell me. Hy iz… gonna… go do someting.”

“Hy tink he’s schtill asleep,” Milosh said helpfully.

“Go ride a lit cannon into de sonset,” Veli suggested, and somehow managed to make his legs carry him out of the room.

It turned out, Sorin really was still asleep, sprawled out over his bed and completely dead to the world. Lyubo was leaning against the doorframe outside of the room, idly scratching at a red spot on the back of his hand and yawning. He snickered at Veli when he stuck his head in, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

Well… good, Veli thought. Sorin was probably tired. From the full night of sex. It was probably better to leave him alone, and clearly everyone had just… recycled yesterday’s orders, so it looked like he wasn’t even necessary in here right now. Veli turned and walked out of the rooms before he did something stupid.

Halfway down the hall he decided he was famished, and turned around to walk the other way towards the kitchens.

Halfway to the kitchens he decided, no, all he really wanted was to drink a bucket of water and then go for a walk until his headache cleared. He turned mid-stride and made for the main exit, waving vaguely at Dario and Blazh as he passed them on patrol.

He found a bucket near the stables and filled it from the public fountain in the courtyard (with its pretty little sign reminding the residents of Gladehall that hydration was important for a well-functioning immune system, seriously, was it possible a medical Spark lived here), dumped the first one over his head before filling it up again and drinking the contents. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged off through the already-bustling streets, finally awake enough to be grumpy.

The worst thing about this was, he’d _known it was happening_ , had been for something like six months now. Granted, Sorin had been going home with men for the night only on nights that Veli was off, which had made it… much easier to ignore, and anyway Veli had been very cheerfully getting laid _himself_ on those nights, he was in love, not a monk, but…

This wasn’t a shock. It shouldn’t have been a shock. Veli was even theoretically _100% in favor_ of Sorin having fun and having sex and _moving on_ , he had to move on, he—

Veli felt like he’d been sideswiped by a lava caterpillar.

…Goddamn, but he really needed a brawl.

* * *

Veli went back to the Castle around eleven, headache lessened to a dull throb and muscles aching and feeling considerably more himself. He waved at the guard standing at the door to the Castle, gave him a polite smile—the guard winced, why—oh, look at that, his hand was bleeding. He licked the blood up casually as he wandered down the hallway back towards the rooms.

“Hyu look more avake,” Zbignev offered casually as Veli walked in.

“Mm, ve iz not velcome at de pub down Saint Petra Street anymore,” Veli informed him, and then flopped into the armchair. His eyes caught on his _still_ unfinished reports. Ugh, really did have to do those today. “De boss und Lyubo iz out und about?”

“Jah, Master Sorin voke op und vanted a lab,” Zbignev said, shrugging. “Hy tink he vas gun try to keel hiz headache de Spark vay. Hy iz headed dere in a minute.”

Veli snorted. “Dun let him drink anyting he makes hung over.”

“Not mine first time to dis circuit,” Zbignev reminded him, and got up to stretch.

“Do me a favor und tell de odderz ve iz svitching to de C schedule after dis next shift, vould hyu?” Veli asked.

“Mm, jah hokay.”

“Thenks.” Veli hesitated, then shrugged. “Sorry about schleeping in dis morning.”

“Meh,” Zbignev said, and that was that. “Haff fon vit de reports hyu didn’t finish.”

“Hy take de apology back. Get out.”

* * *

_The only Guard member Veli took on a recommendation was Zbignev. If you could call it a recommendation._

* * *

_“Hoy Veli,” Zbignev called, slouching up to him in the mess hall. “General Khrizhan sayz hyu iz looking for me?”_

_Veli looked up from the list he’d been making of potential Guard members, with mixed success. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Hy vos?”_

_“Vell,_ hy _dunno,” Zbignev said, plopping down across from Veli and peering with vague interest at Veli’s list. “Vos hyu? Vot, iz hyu making a list ov jaegers or sumtin?”_

 _“Trying to fill de Guard,” Veli said, shrugging. “Hy vosn’t looking for hyu, though, hy dunno vhy—“ It dawned on Veli what was going on here just as realization passed over Zbignev’s face, followed by a look of abject horror. “_ Zbignev! _” He gave Zbignev his sunniest grin. “How iz hyu_ doing _, iz hyu schtill schtock et dat dumb outpost vat nobody effer goes to? Hy bet dat’s_ so boring _, vould be nize to haff a bit ov a change ov pace, eh?”_

 _Zbignev gave Veli a look that was just as flat as the area he’d been stuck guarding for the last decade. “Hy iz gon say yaz,” he said, and Veli threw his arms up in victory, “bot only becawz hy vos_ tricked _.”_

_“Hyu vill get used to dat,” Veli said, cheerfully pulling out his list and adding Zbignev’s name to the bottom. “Hy just ask Blazh yesterday, und he iz schtarting next veek.”_

* * *

Velimir had all of his remaining reports done by three in the afternoon, once he sat down to actually do them. Snappy kept him company under the desk it had apparently claimed as its own little hidey-hole, whirring quietly before settling in for “nap time” to recharge. It turned out, starting brawls with drunks early in the morning and then doing four hours of paperwork was hungry work, so Veli spent the next hour wandering down to the kitchens and eating his weight in meat fat that had been judged unworthy of making it onto an actual plate. Then he went back up to the reports and sealed them all up, which took another half hour—there was a lot of paper—at which point he wasted ten minutes trying to decide if he wanted to make a minion bring them down to the post office or go himself. He finally went himself, why not, and delivered them to the postman just before he closed up for the night.

At that point, it was five in the evening, three hours before he and Sorin—well, at this point, Sorin-with-him-tagging-along-due-to-social-niceties—were supposed to be meeting Tamara for dinner again, and Veli had to admit he was avoiding Sorin. He sighed.

All right, Velimir was a grown-ass jaeger in his 170s, and Sorin had not done anything wrong. Time to stop acting like a sulky teenager.

That said, it turned out that even having determined that he would go and find Sorin, actually doing it was a bit more difficult than Veli had anticipated. There were, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite a few labs in Doctor von Elbe’s castle, and Sorin had the run of about a third of them. When Veli finally ran into Zbignev on the third floor, he was seriously considering whether it would be worth it to go back to the rooms and find one of Sorin’s tracker devices. They’d been put away almost immediately on account of the fact that being able to track someone anywhere using an arrow pointing directly at them was sort of creepy, but Sorin _did_ generally wear the locator just in case…

“Am hy on de right floor, at least,” Veli asked, as Zbignev came up, and then… paused. Zbignev was frowning, shoulders tense, neck held forward like he was looking for a fight—“Vat happened,” Veli said, tensing up as well.

“…Hy dun know,” Zbignev said. “He seyz he haz headache, vhich… vell.” Zbignev shrugged. “He… doez not schmell right, bot he von’t say iffen iz sumtin else.”

“Vhere iz he,” Veli said, already striding past the other jaeger and down the hall.

“Right at de end ov de hall, tree doors down,” Zbignev called after him. “Bosko iz dere.”

“Right,” Veli called back, and then sped up.

Bosko _was_ there, eyeing the scene through the door he was standing by with a worried expression. He opened his mouth to say something as Veli strolled up, but Veli shook his head, teeth clenched shut, and let himself into the room.

Sorin looked up, eyes glazed strangely and cheeks too flushed, and a tool slipped right out of his grip and into whatever concoction he’d been playing with.

“Blue lightning,” Sorin snapped, alarmed, and grabbed a pair of tongs to fish the tool out—well, the half that hadn’t touched the liquid. Sorin grimaced and dropped the metal before it could dissolve all the way and start in on the tongs. He closed his eyes tight, took a few deep breaths, then blinked them open again.

Veli didn’t even remember crossing the room. Next second, he was standing next to Sorin, back of his hand pressed to Sorin’s neck. “Hyu have a fever,” he informed Sorin.

“I’m fine,” Sorin said, even as his eyes closed and he leaned into Veli’s hand. “Mmm, ‘scold.”

“Iz not, hyu iz burning up,” Veli insisted, and then turned Sorin very firmly away from the table and towards the door. “Bed. Now. Vat even happened, did hyu check de other guy?”

Sorin dragged his feet, shooting Veli a glazed, annoyed look. “I said I’m fine,” he complained, “and… and of course I did, I—well, Milosh did…” He closed his eyes. “I can’t shake this headache,” he complained, grumpy.

“Ve get hyu into bed und get hyu some ice, yez?” Veli nodded at Bosko as he fell in on Sorin’s other side, subtly walking to catch Sorin if he needed a quick brace.

“I never get sick, though,” Sorin muttered, sulkily, obviously leaning into Veli now and letting himself be steered. “And… Tamara’s expecting…”

“Hy tell Miz Tamara hyu iz sick und not coming,” Veli said firmly. “Hyu just get sicker dis vay, und get her sick too maybe.”

“Don’t tell my mother I’m sick,” Sorin said, eyes closing all the way now. He swayed a little. Velimir got a better grip on him as Bosko caught Sorin’s elbow. “…Dizzy.”

“Hyu can’t tell me vhat to put in mine reports,” Veli told him, trying for light. “Hy answer to hyu mother about dat, not hyu.”

“Jerk,” Sorin muttered, and forced his eyes open, took most of his weight back. “Okay, yeah, maybe bed.”

“Hokay,” Veli said. “Bosko, can hyu run ahead und get some ice und tings?”

“Jah,” Bosko said, and nudged Sorin lightly in the side. “Hy meet hyu dere, Master,” he said, and took off down the hall.

“You have to tell Tamara,” Sorin muttered as he started walking again. He shivered suddenly, wrapped his arms around himself. Veli’s heart sank.

“Hy vill, hy promise,” he said, instead of sweeping Sorin off his feet and marching them to the rooms right then. “First hyu go to bed.”

“…Okay,” Sorin muttered, teeth starting to chatter now as he shivered. “I think I have a fever.”

“Hy tink hyu iz right,” Veli told him, and… oh, fuck it, he swept Sorin up into a princess carry, wrapping his arms around him to try to get the shivering to stop.  “Bed.”

“Yeah,” Sorin breathed, and put his head on Veli’s shoulder, closed his eyes.

Veli gritted his teeth, then forced himself to relax and walk back to the stairs and towards the rooms.

He determinedly ignored the voice in the back of his head that was pointing out that, apart from that, there was very little he could do.

* * *

Veli did finally go to tell Tamara they weren’t coming, but only at 7:30, and only because there were also a handful of guard members still not back who needed to know their Master was… sick, and because if nothing else, someone should leave word at the Hospital that someone should call Doctor von Elbe back sooner rather than later. And because it had been an order.

Maybe mostly because it had been an order. Velimir found himself personally pretty unbothered by the concept of the probably-a-spy sitting around wondering why Sorin hadn’t shown when the chips were down, no matter how much she’d made Sorin laugh.

His opinion didn’t matter, though. Sorin had brought it up more than once now, equally as upset about not being able to go each time, and Veli…

Well. However helpless Veli felt right now, he could still follow his Master’s orders.

The Hospital reception area was fairly light on waiting patients, so Velimir left his message directly with the receptionist rather than just handing her a note. He’d probably been a bit… intense about it, considering she’d been quaking a little by the time he was done. Hmph. Mechanicsburg’s hospital receptionists were made of sterner stuff. If Sorin surv—tomorrow, Veli would bring up maybe moving Sorin there. Sorin was pretty out of it, he might say yes just to get Velimir to shut up.

Veli caught Milosh coming out of a bakery—huh, wow, was that bakery still open, that one had good sweetbread—and Premisl and Chestibor hitting on some random uninterested group of ladies who seemed mostly entertained by them, so Veli let it go and just sent them off. He’d have left telling Dario to Milosh, but he ran into him on the road towards the tavern, so he told him too, and left before Dario had finished paling visibly even under the fur. Lyubo and Zbignev and Bosko and Andrej were still with Sorin, and Blazh was trying to shake down one of the minions for something to bring down a fever, so that left Stani, but Veli was now actually late to meet Tamara. He growled and changed course. Just a quick in-and-out, this one thing and then find Stani and then he could go back and… be useless in a group instead of by himself.

 _Ken’t ponch a fever_ , Bosko had said earlier, trying for joking and ending up sounding mostly anxious. Veli hadn’t responded, because if he had he probably would have said he was willing to try, and that would have made no sense at all.

Veli needn’t have worried, anyway. Stani was sitting next to Tamara at the bar of the tavern, chatting with her for some reason Veli could not fathom.

“…take a left at der fountain near de gates,” Stani was saying, bending her wrist and leaning towards her left to indicate, “und den iz chust tree blocks. Iz verra bright building, hyu ken’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Tamara said. “I knew about this one place down Cedar, but it’s closed now, and I’m _dying_ for a snail gelato.”

…Right, clearly this was not a particularly information-rich conversation. “Tamara,” he called, and walked right up to the pair of them, nodding to Stani like he didn’t know her, or had only seen her in passing. Stani tilted her hat down a little so she could roll her eyes out of sight, and took a gulp of her beer. “Sorry, I know I iz late—“ damn, slipped. Oh, who cared, Veli was pretty done with this charade anyway, Tamara wasn’t stupid and… well, Veli highly suspected she knew a jaeger when she saw one. “I can’t stay,” he said. “Sorin is… not feeling well.” Stani stilled—for just a second, Veli wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been watching—and then finished taking a bite of food. Her eyes flicked to Veli under her hat, alert and wary.

Tamara stilled a lot more noticeably, and then put her fork down. “Oh, I see,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“…Fever.” Veli shrugged. “A bad one. He’s pretty much stuck in bed.”

“Huh,” Tamara said, eyes sharpening on him. “Well, good thing he’s in Gladehall, huh? He could always go to the Hospital if things get too bad.”

Veli smirked. “Doctor’s out for the week,” he told her. “There’s no one but the minions at the Hospital right now.” Tamara stared at him, and then her face shifted, wary to grave.

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” she said. “Couldn’t be worse timing, really.”

“Mm,” Veli agreed, shifting his weight back a little bit. Seriously, if she didn’t stop making small talk in a minute, he was turning around and walking out mid-sentence.

Next to Tamara, Stani was forcing herself to finish her food casually. Wouldn’t do to show concern, and damn Sorin’s dumb lie, anyway.

“I completely understand that you two have to cancel, then,” Tamara said. “Sorry Sorin’s sick.”

“He’ll be fine,” Veli snapped, and then shut his mouth on the rest. Argh, he had to get out of here.

Tamara smiled, and it couldn’t have been more insincere if she’d been making an effort. “Of course, he seems the hardy type. Anyway, I’ll let you go back.”

“Thanks,” Veli said, and then turned and left.

 _Sorin probably would have thought that was_ _rude_ , he thought vaguely as he all but ran back to the castle. _Ah, well_.

Stani caught up to him at the gate to the courtyard, and they walked the rest of the way to the rooms in silence.

Unsurprisingly, Sorin was not better when they arrived.

* * *

Sorin’s fever climbed steadily over the next two hours. He went from violently shivering to soaking his bed sheets and back again between breaths, it seemed, went from delirious to deep in the madness place only slightly less frequently. He was swelling, too, in his throat and near his armpits, a rash spreading from his neck all down his back and disappearing beneath the sheets. By the time 11:00 rolled around, he’d lost the strength to sit up, needed Veli to prop him into a sitting position so that they could change his clothes to something that would hopefully breathe a bit better than the thick cotton and leather he’d been wearing before.

He fell asleep before they could put a new shirt on him, leaning back into Veli’s chest, and made this awful half asleep despairing noise when Veli tried to get out from behind him to lay him back down. Veli looked between the rest of the guard, not sure what to do, and they all looked away, pointedly, temporarily blind to their Captain cuddling their Heterodyne on Sorin’s bed. Veli wrapped his arms around Sorin and held him until the sweating started again and Sorin thrashed his way back out of Velimir’s hold in an attempt to find a cool spot on the sheets.

After that, Sorin was mostly asleep for the next hour, waking up more often Sparking than delirious, which meant he looked at Velimir with too-aware eyes and asked in a hoarse croak of his usual voice if Veli had ever seen something like this before (no), or if there was anything in his medical book like this (no), or if, maybe, someone could get him to a lab—

“No,” Premisl’s voice cut through the room, vibrating with growl. “Hyu turn right beck around, he iz not dealink vit hyu right now.”

“I was summoned,” said a far too familiar voice, haughtily. “Someone left a message with the hospital receptionist that Sorin was sick, and I am on call while the Doctor is out.”

Veli slipped his hand out of Sorin’s—he’d grabbed Veli about fifteen minutes ago and refused to let go, shaking so hard Veli was beginning to wonder if they were wrong, if he wasn’t shivering so much as _seizing_ —and went to the door, giving Andrej a look and a nod towards where he’d been sitting. Andrej took Veli’s place, caught Sorin’s questing hand, murmuring quietly.

“Hy left a message for de _Doctor_ ,” he corrected, sticking his head out the door. “Iz hyu a doctor, Miz Rozalia?”

“I,” Rozalia said, standing in the common area with her feet planted and her arms crossed, staring down the gamut of a jaeger squad on a hair trigger and looking for a reason to shoot with a ferocity Veli would probably have admired if he were in any state to do something other than worry, “am the chief minion of a medical Spark. I have a long-distance degree in nursing, a background in medical knowledge that I have been assured by experts is rather impressive, and more experience with diagnosis and medical care than the eleven of you _combined_. And, considering it would take about twelve hours to even send Doctor von Elbe a _letter_ at this point, if the situation is really as dire as Maria made it sound, I am also the best you are going to get. Would you rather let me in, or go back to watching him die by inches while you fret and do absolutely nothing?”

Veli tensed—which was actually a feat, he’d had no idea he was capable of being tenser than he had been just a minute ago, the things he was learning about himself in Gladehall—stepped all the way out into the common area, crossed his arms back. He and Rozalia stared at each other for a minute.

“…He haz a fever dat keeps climbing,” Veli started. “Ve giff him dat herb for dat, de vun vat brings down fevers? Hy dun know vat iz called, but anyvay ve give him dat about two hours ago now—“

“Veli,” Premisl started, pulling himself up to object.

 _“Private_ ,” Velimir snapped, without looking. Premisl shut his mouth. “Did hyu get a medical or nursing degree in de past ten minutes dat _hy iz not avare ov_?”

“…No, si- _sargeant_ ,” Premisl said, slumping.

“Den shut op or schtand down,” Veli snarled, and nodded at Rozalia. “So ve give him dat, but iz schtill going up. He iz getting de chills und den de sveats preddy frequently, und svelling in de soft areas—throat, armpits…”

“Anything else tender that you’ve noticed?” Rozalia asked. “Or an area that’s been particularly affected?”

“He haz a rash down hiz back,” Veli told her. “Ve vas tinking heat rash, becawz he iz mostly on hiz back und de sveats. Iz sort ov big for someting else…”

“Hm, well, I think I want a look at that first, then,” Rozalia said. “May I come in?”

Veli… hesitated. It was one thing to give her a list, but… Sorin hadn’t given her permission…

“Yeah, s’fine,” Sorin croaked from inside. “You’re all being—beinsilly, what’s she going t’do’t this point…”

Veli sighed and stepped aside. Rozalia walked right past him without looking.

“I can think of a few things,” she said, pointedly. Sorin snorted, opening his eyes to look directly at her—well, at least he was…did the madness place count as lucid? “But what I am going to do is _my job_ , and nothing more.” She nodded at Andrej, who (quite understandably) had not moved away from Sorin’s bed and was eying her with gross suspicion, and walked around to Sorin’s other side.

“Roll so you’re facing away from me, please, I need to take a look at this rash.”

Sorin sighed, pushed himself over with visible effort. “Your bedside manner leaves—“ he sighed, slumping over so that Andrej was propping him on the bed, started to shiver again. Veli clenched his fists, gave into the urge to go stand at the foot of the bed, ignored everyone as he covered Sorin’s feet back up with one of the blankets.

“Leaves what,” Rozalia said, and then she looked down at Sorin’s back and… froze, eyes widening in recognition.

It didn’t look like a particularly relieved recognition.

“…Sorin,” she said, calmly. “Have you been bitten by a spider sometime in the last 48 hours?”

“Mm?” Sorin asked, shivers picking up again, forehead curled so it was pressed to Andrej’s forearm. Andrej’s jaw was set, shoulders hunched, practically curled around Sorin like he thought maybe he could shield him from the cold flash.

“A spider bite,” Rozalia said. “You’d remember, it would have hurt quite a lot. Sorin—“ she sighed, turned to look at Veli.

“…he vas,” Veli admitted, eyes going to the closet. “Last night. He said dere vas a hatch—“

Rozalia looked at the closet too, eyes wide. “A _hatch_? Are you…” She rounded on the others, jammed so that they all were peering into the room through the door. “How about all of you? Any spider bites? Rashes? Headaches?”

She was met with silence for a minute, and then Lyubo shifted to put an arm through the door, raised his hand. “Hy gots dis spider bite,” he said, turning his hand around so to show Rozalia the small area of blotchy skin on the back. “Iz a leedle itchy, und mine eyes hurt a leedle in too moch light yesterday…” Rozalia drew in a deep breath, walked back around to take a look—gave the closet a wide berth, and Veli went cold, turned to look at the closet again. What did she think—

“…When,” she asked quietly, taking Lyubo’s hand so she could look at the rash more closely, “did this happen?”

“Oh, a few dayz ago,” Lyubo said. “Doze leedle guyz iz crazy mean, bot dey haz a nize kick.”

Rozalia’s head snapped up, mouth agape. Heh... “A nice ki—you _ate them_?”

“…Vell, not _all_ ov dem,” Lyubo said, looking shifty. “Dot vould be greedy!”

“I…” Rozalia dropped Lyubo’s hand, turned to the others. “How many of you have eaten spiders in this room?”

“…Ah,” Zbignev said, looking away and to the side. “Do hyu mean… like, recently, or since ve get here, or—“

“ _How many of you have eaten spiders from the hatch in the closet_ ,” Rozalia snapped. “Hands up, now!”

Zbignev raised his hand, guilty. Chestibor and Premisl followed, looking sheepish. A second later, Dario _oophed_ and raised his own hand, glaring at Milosh sulkily.

“…Oh, Hell’s gates,” Rozalia said, and took a deep breath, turned and stomped over to the closet. She hesitated only a minute, and then reached forward and yanked it open all at once.

And then slammed the door closed and jumped back, reaching up to her shirt and unlacing the neck—what—

“Strip,” she ordered. “Right now, all of you. We are _leaving these rooms_ , and we are taking nothing a spider could cling to.”

“Iz hyu _serious_ ,” Stani asked, stepping into the room.

“I could not be more serious if I _tried_ ,” Rozalia snapped. “I have no idea how Weekend Spiders got in here, or why the lot of you aren’t _dead_ after _eating them_ , but they’re Spark-made venomous spiders and they kill in 48 hours. When was Sorin bitten last night?” She pulled her shirt over her head in the resulting horrified silence, dropping it on the floor and reaching for her skirt. “ _Well_?”

“…Seven or eight,” Veli said, feeling oddly numb. “He vas getting ready to go out--“

“He had a headache dis morning,” Zbignev interrupted, as everyone started undressing. “Ve thought vos—too moch drinking…”

“They’re called Weekend Spiders because they take the span of a weekend to kill and the symptoms start out like a bad hangover,” Rozalia said grimly, finishing undressing and marching over to Sorin. “Okay, you are getting up. The antivenom is a Sparkwork, there are actually no other Sparks in the castle who could do this, and we don’t have time to get anyone else. You have to take it before you reach stage three— _Sorin_!”

Rozalia smacked Sorin hard, hand coming back white and then red. Sorin breathed in, wheezing and then coughing, curling in on himself, eyes squeezed shut. Velimir froze mid-lunge, _felt_ the other jaegers do the same.

“…Correction,” Rozalia said, wryly, reaching over to turn Sorin’s head, making sure he was paying attention to her, forcing him to uncurl. “You have reached stage three. Breathe slowly, you have to stop coughing. You don’t actually need to cough, it’s the venom telling your body that there’s something caught in your throat, it’s designed to force you to stop breathing.”

“That’s—“ Sorin wheezed, and then started coughing again. Rozalia hauled him upright, forced him to open his airway all the way.

“You have to do this,” Rozalia hissed. “You have an hour at best before the venom convinces your body you are suffocating and you actually start to do it, because once that happens you are going to fall into a coma. If you get that far, you are going to die, because _nobody else can make the antivenom_. And if you die, your guards are going to die with you.” Sorin forced his coughs quiet, turned his head to look at her.

“You said—“ he wheezed. “Not—‘sbeen longer than—“

“They’re having symptoms,” Rozalia said. “That means the venom works on jaegers. I don’t care how resistant they are, it is only a matter of time. There are _studies_ , Sorin. There is _one_ cure.”

Sorin looked away from her, hacking, took a deep breath with visible effort, and then another. He closed his eyes as he breathed, forced the coughs to stop, opened his eyes again bright and sharp. “You’ll have to get me the recipe,” he said.

“I have a book,” Rozalia assured him. “Stand up, I am not taking off your pants for you.”

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

It was probably inevitable that they’d hit a jaegersquad-shaped roadblock, but if he’d been asked what it would be three days ago, Sorin definitely would not have predicted this particular issue. It turned out, when faced with the near-certain death of their only Sparky Heterodyne, the jaegers stripped off their weaponry and left it behind with only mild argument, and abandoned their hats in a pile with only slightly more protesting and a very clear promise from Rozalia that the room would be _fumigated_ instead of just burned.

Sorin had not really participated in either of those debates, busy as he was with the monumental task of standing upright, removing his pants, _and_ breathing past the obstruction in his throat he could _feel_ despite knowing it wasn’t there all at once. In fact, he’d really only been aware of them peripherally, the same way he was aware of the hallucinations born of delirium creeping at the corners of his vision and beaten back by only the sharp focus of the madness place, and the fact that he only needed to reach out to grab the elbow of the jaeger that was _always_ within arm’s reach, ready to catch him if the shaking started again and his knees failed.

This argument, though, cut into his concentration like a knife, because Andrej sounded _genuinely distressed_.

“Hyu iz _not_ leavink him in here to be _fumigated_ ,” Andrej growled, hugging Snappy’s still form like one might a baby or… kitten, stuffed animal. Something small and squishy and not-a-lightning-spitting-barely-sentient-clank. Snappy had been turned off, Sorin recalled vaguely, because it’d kept sneaking into Sorin’s room and buzzing angrily at all of them like its distress was somehow their fault. “Ve ken check him for spiders befur ve leave.”

“And if a spider has crawled inside of him?” Rozalia said, hands on her hips and feet planted, apparently completely unconcerned about how that displayed her—well, basically just her. All of her. Because she was just as naked as everyone else in the room. Wow, Sorin suspected he’d be dying of embarrassment right now if he weren’t so busy trying not to choke. Or he’d be enjoying the view. Not the view of Rozalia, though, the other views.

It was possible he was slightly delirious despite being in the madness place, huh. Interesting.

“Ve ken shake him over sumting und see vot falls out,” Milosh was suggesting, eyeing Snappy dubiously.

“That’s ridiculous,” Rozalia snapped. “Spiders _cling_.”

“Not de vay hy shake dey don’t,” Milosh said, ominously.

“I think,” Sorin croaked, immediately drawing the attention of everyone in the room (yeah, definitely would be dying of embarrassment), “that you’d--probably break him if you shook that hard.” He stopped talking, out of breath just from that. Stani—huh, Stani was standing next to him, last Sorin had checked it had been Premisl—Stani reached over and took his elbow, let him lean into her a little and catch his breath.

“Bot ve ken’t _leave_ him,” Andrej said, looking anguished and torn. Sorin sighed, swallowed against the non-existent obstruction in his throat. Took a deep breath.

“Put him down and turn him on,” he said, straightening. Andrej hesitated, but then did as he was told, reluctantly. He reached up as though to pull his hat over his eyes, stopped the movement halfway through and let his arm drop—his brim was usually so low down, it must feel so weird without half his face shielded—ugh. One problem at a time.

“Snappy,” Sorin said, as his little clank came online and immediately spun in a circle at the alarming situation it had found itself in. Snappy turned to direct its attention to Sorin. “We’re going…” Sorin gasped, paused, started again. “We’re going to play a game.” Snappy tilted its head, message received. Sorin smiled, wryly, looked around at everyone. “You should probably all—step back,” he advised. “Snappy, make lightning.”

Snappy buzzed in _delight_ , straightened up to its full whole entire meter in height, and then suddenly was _engulfed_ in lightning, shooting up to the ceiling and into the floor. The jaegers gasped; Andrej yelped and jumped back, eyes wide. The carpet smoked—oops, oh well. Sorin slumped against Stani again, waited for his clank to finish showing off. “Good boy,” he murmured, and looked at Rozalia. “I think,” he said slowly, deliberately, “that the spiders are dead.”

“…Oh, fine, the clank can come,” Rozalia snapped. “It was turned off and wouldn’t know, and this wasted a full ten minutes you could have been saving yourself, but sure! Why not! Let’s bring the clank!” She threw her hands up in the air and spun on her heel, making for the door. “Someone get him moving, we don’t have _time_. We still need to make sure none of you are carrying any passengers, and I need to get the damn book!”

Sorin straightened up, stepped away from Stani, suddenly annoyed. “I can—“ he started—too fast, his breath hitched, a cough escaping, and then suddenly he couldn’t _stop_ , he was on his knees, his throat was closing up and he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see—

“Stand him up!” Rozalia. He couldn’t stand, he—

Arms around him, chest at his back, someone else grabbing his hair, forcing his head up and his throat open, and—Veli’s voice in his ear—“Sorin. Breathe.” Sorin choked, forced himself to take a breath around the coughing, matched Veli’s breaths behind him. One more. Again. There was nothing in his throat. He breathed again, and the coughing quieted.

“Water?” he asked, eyes watering and throat raw.

“As soon as we get to the lab,” Rozalia said, and Sorin opened his eyes to look at her in front of him—she’d been who grabbed his hair. Oh. Well, that had been nice of her, he supposed. “Can you walk, or should someone carry you?”

Sorin thought about it. God, he was cold. Velimir was so warm… “Whatever’s faster,” he muttered, and then his feet were off the floor.

“Vhich lab,” Veli asked as the world whirled dizzily. Sorin closed his eyes.

“B wing would be best,” Rozalia said, “but there’s one in the guest wing, too. Follow me, there’s a passage behind this tapestry—“ Sorin tuned her out, pressed his forehead to Veli’s neck, where he could feel Veli’s pulse, and focused on remembering to breathe.

* * *

“Iz hyu _crazy_ ,” Dario asked, voice horribly, horribly flat.

“It’s either this or shaving,” Rozalia responded. “Your choice! Be thankful I let you boil water first. I just washed my hair in water straight out of the tap.”

“Dere izn’t any spiders in mine _fur_ ,” Dario snapped.

“Are you sure about that? Because you have a lot of fur, and it looks pretty thick.”

“…Vell, hy go jump in a river den! Hy vill schtay in der river until all der spiders drown, und den—“

“Take de soap, Dario,” Veli said, sounding tired.

“ _No_.”

“ _Take de soap or hy get Milosh to hold hyu down und let Miz Rozalia shave hyu vit a scalpel_.”

“I keep thinking this…can’t get weirder,” Sorin muttered, leaning half against Lyubo—who was freshly scrubbed and looking sulky about it, absently scratching at the rash on his hand—and half on the lab bench, Snappy’s once-again still form tucked under his legs like a particularly bumpy footrest for safe keeping. “And then—Rozalia makes everyone take a bath.”

“Iz to help hyu,” Lyubo said, looking genuinely long-suffering and clearly attempting to breathe only through his mouth. Sorin huffed a laugh and shoved a clump of still-damp hair off his face, eyes closing almost against his will. Lyubo nudged him, and Sorin’s eyes snapped back open. “No sleepink,” the jaeger reminded him.

“Okay!” Rozalia was wrapping a fire blanket around herself—kind of silly at this point, since she’d already marched through all the halls naked, but Sorin was beyond the point where he had the energy to judge, so. “I’m going to get the book. Finish washing, don’t let Sorin fall asleep or start choking on nothing, and _don’t do anything stupid_.” With that, she turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

“Too bad hyu iz an invert,” Lyubo mused, head tilted thoughtfully. “She vould be a goot Heterodyne consort.”

“I h—hate you,” Sorin forced out, and then paused to catch his breath again. Lyubo nodded agreeably.

“Yaz, Master.”

“Get wound.”

“Hokay, Master. Later, though!”

Sorin reached up and caught Lyubo’s hand as he went to itch at the rash again. “Make yourself bleed,” he muttered, and fought his lowering eyelids again. “Stop.”

“...Jah, sorry.”

“Hoy, Master,” Bosko said, and something _thunked_ down in front of Sorin. He opened his eyes—when had he closed them again—and looked down at the large container of steaming water.

“…Already washed,” he pointed out, lifting his head and raising an eyebrow.

Bosko nodded agreeably as Lyubo slipped away and went to observe the train wreck that was three jaegers holding Dario down while Chestibor—who’d eaten a spider and therefore needed to be less careful about accidentally coming across one—worked soap vigorously into his fur, nose wrinkled and jaw set. “Hy tink, vhen hy vos schtill leedle mine mamma boil vater for a chest cold und put me near der steam to breathe in. Made breathing easier, jah? So mebbe it helps hyu breathe easier?”

Sorin was using a surprising amount of brain power to keep reminding himself that the trouble he was having breathing was entirely in his head—and he really needed to ask Rozalia about how that worked, was it simply affecting the way his brain was processing the nerves in this throat, was it changing the texture of the saliva, was it maybe… or possibly—Sorin shook himself back onto the previous train of thought, breathed in. The steam curled down his raw throat and into his lungs, warm and soothing and loose. There was nothing there to loosen.

It kind of helped anyway.

“Placebo effect,” Sorin murmured. “Good idea, thanks.”

Bosko grinned, and it almost reached the worry in his eyes. “Goot.”

“Mm,” Sorin said, and his eyes shut again. He was beginning to feel too warm again, and the darkness and the steam were nice. Bosko moved around to sit next to him, nudged him a bit.

“Hyu haff to schtay avake.”

“Mm’wake,” Sorin slurred, and took another deep breath, leaning over so he was resting on Bosko.

“Master…”

“Mm’counting…” his breath caught. He coughed, once, twice, made himself stop. “Counting breaths,” he finished.

“…Hokay, bot hy iz gonna pinch hyu effery… two minutes,” Bosko warned. “Miz Rozalia says hyu sleepink vill make it easy for hyu body to leesten to de—“

“Shhh,” Sorin said, and Bosko fell silent. Sorin breathed again, and again, and again, and ignored the warning tickle in the back of his throat. He drifted.

He woke with a jolt when Rozalia slammed the door to the lab open, making as much noise as possible. “You had better not be sleeping,” she growled, marching over to him and clutching a book wider than her palm. She slammed it down on the lab bench next to him, flipping it over with efficient movements and turning to the correct indented section. “Arachnids… venomous… half an hour…five hours…day…two—here. Weekend spiders.”

She turned the book, elbowing Sorin in the side so he’d spin to look. He sighed, pushing himself off Bosko’s shoulder—yeah, those were the spiders in his closet alright. Great. His head throbbed and he shut his eyes, opened them again and began scanning the page.

…Huh. Nerve endings, then. Well, that wasn’t so bad, he actually didn’t mind nervous system work as much. It was pretty similar to wiring in a lot of ways…

…oh, well actually that did make sense as a reversal—

\--huh, what an interesting solution to the inevitable nervous overload—

\--but what about… oh, yes, that would work, he’d read something about that—

\--but wouldn’t—

\--what if—

\--no, wait, maybe instead he could just—

Bosko elbowed him right in the ribs. Sorin jumped, started coughing again in surprise, throat smarting like he’d been—

\--heterodyning. Oops. He turned to look at Rozalia, but she was…setting up the lab equipment he would need, actually. Huh, that was efficient. He kept forgetting she was a minion.

He looked back down at the book. He’d had _some_ chemistry training, but not a lot, and his medical training could on a whole be fit into a total of three months over the course of two years and a lot of frantic reading of obscure medical texts.

But he could see the connections here—he knew what some of these ingredients did, and the rest fit into the pattern like puzzle pieces. This powder was thick—it would need to be dissolved, which was why they needed that ingredient, which he _knew_ only came in liquid form, and then this one must be an escalator to make sure the dissolution happened in time for the last ingredient…

It was easy. It was _obvious_. It was—He could do this.

He could save _all_ of them.

“Take the salt and pour it into the boiled water,” he said, looking up at Rozalia.

“What?” Rozalia paused mid-way through setting the salt on the table. “That is _way_ too much salt water, the recipe calls for—“

“I need six doses,” Sorin interrupted her. “And it’s—“ he paused, gasped, suddenly _furious_ with how out of breath he was, how shaky he felt, he was a _Spark_ , his mind was the best weapon he had, this was _ridiculous_. He took a deep breath, and forced the instructions out on the exhale. “It’s already boiling, it’ll be faster, we don’t have time to make the doses separately.”

“There’s _soap in the water_ ,” Rozalia said. Sorin picked up a bottle and handed it to her, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s lye, that’ll neutralize it.” He turned back around before she had a chance to respond, picked up the first ingredient. He could feel the madness place boiling all around him, shoving back the delirium and the doubt and the fear. There was no room for that here. There was only one acceptable outcome to this, and he had about half an hour to manage it.

“Okay,” he said, and breathed in, and let himself sink.

Sift these together, add three drops of the escalator—no, they’d need more, the lye—he dumped in half, threw in another handful of the other ingredients to slow down the effect until he could—

“That’s too much!”

“Root,” Sorin said, holding out a hand, and dumped it in as well. The fizzing slowed. “Ha, see! It counters the effects because it’s—“ his throat caught, took him by surprise, and a cough escaped—

Rozalia pounded on his back, caught the root before it could tip into the vial and cause an explosion instead of just a slower burn. “Pay attention, what are you doing? These are volatile materials!”

“I know that!” Sorin turned to snarl at her, adding the next ingredient as she passed it to him without really thinking about it, picked up the container of salt-water mix she’d brought over with her and the stirrer. This was tricky, too much salt water too fast would kill the reaction, but sifting too fast would separate the materials and do that anyway. He began to stir.

“It sure doesn’t look like it,” Rozalia snapped. “Does beating it up help?”

“Stirrer’s too narrow,” Sorin snarled, and then a different stirrer was in his hand—oh, that was better, the wire netting would lessen the separation. He started using that. “More salt water, I’m nearly out.”

“Here,” Rozalia said, setting the next container down at his elbow. He turned his head to look at it—couldn’t risk spilling around this—and the room spun, suddenly, light stabbing at his eyes, knees buckling all at once—he braced on the lab bench, squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly _freezing_ and—

“Sorin!” Sorin’s attention snapped back to the table. _Damn_ , he’d knocked over the water, it was seeping into the bowl—nonono he could fix it. He grabbed, blindly, for the accelerant.

“Don’t—“ Rozalia started, lunging for the bottle.

“Get _back_ ,” Sorin snapped, and dumped half the bottle in. “Root!” A bowl of the root appeared, powdered, and he dumped in half of that, too, mixed the two together. The mixture fizzed alarmingly, too fast and the wrong reaction and he didn’t have _time_ to make it again nonono—

“Acid,” he snapped, not bothering to say the full name, and Rozalia handed it over. “Now the base powder.”

“Here!”

“ _Stirrer_.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Come on,” Sorin muttered, carefully adding the rest of the root. Nearly there, the fizzing was calming down, just—“Ha!” Smoke shot into the air, noxious green nearly opaque, and then the mixture settled, returning to the low boil it was supposed to be doing. Sorin slumped, suddenly exhausted, breathed too fast and started to cough.

“It’s stable agai— _Sorin_!”

“Master!”

Sorin couldn’t _breathe_ , there wasn’t enough air, he couldn’t see there were things crawling in the corners of his vision and black was spiraling in from the sides—

\--he came to choking for real. “Turn your head and spit,” Rozalia directed, and Sorin did, coughed up whatever Rozalia had poured down his throat.

“Master--“

“I’ve _got him_ ,” Rozalia snapped. “ _Stay_ over _there_ , I said!” Then Sorin felt arms grabbing him and pulling him all the way upright, a blanket settling around his shoulders. “Don’t do that again,” Rozalia ordered, bracing him from behind. “You’re nearly there. I’ll be your hands. Tell me what to do.”

Sorin opened his eyes—he could barely focus on what was in front of him, he was shaking so hard his vision was vibrating—and looked at the mixture. It was boiling down. “Mix… salt water,” he muttered, put his hands flat on the table to try to stop them shaking. “One more vial, then sit until it’s—mm, thick enough to coat a stirrer.”

“Is _that_ all,” Rozalia muttered, and did as directed. “I cannot believe you, you screwed up that badly this close to the end? What kind of Spark are you, anyway? First you break through _way too late_ for it to even matter, and then—“

“You are a terrible minion,” Sorin informed her, eyes sliding shut. God, he was so tired, he hurt _everywhere_ , he just wanted to lie down and sleep—“Why are you a good minion to everyone but me.”

“Because I hate you,” Rozalia said, efficiently turning down the heat to let the solution boil down more efficiently.

“Mmm… yeah, you dumped me,” Sorin agreed. “’N then… kidnapped my mother.”

“You _betrayed the Viscountess_ ,” Rozalia stressed, sounding _livid_. “Who was the _leader of your town_ and _my Mistress_.”

“She was going—st’rt awar,” Sorin forced out.

“Well, maybe if you’d broken through _sooner_ , _none of this would have happened_!”

Sorin blinked his eyes open. “…wha’s… that got to do with it?”

“ _Everything_!” Rozalia shook him. Sorin was already shaking, so it didn’t have much of an effect. “Maybe things would have worked out! I could have been _your_ minion, maybe, and it would have changed our relationship so you stopped treating me like a kind of gross little sister you had to drag around with you, and—but noooooo, Mister I don’t need anyone for anything I am too big and manly—“

“Wouldn’t have,” Sorin said. Closing his eyes again. “Wouldn’t date a minion.”

“You have something against _minions_?”

“Naw,” Sorin said. “’sjust gross t’date one. Unbalanced.” The shaking got even stronger. He grit his teeth against the chattering, tried to remember not to choke on the shuddering breaths he was managing past the chills.

“It is not,” Rozalia insisted, wrapping the blanket around him more securely. “It’s a very fulfilling and trusting and supportive relationship!”

“Mm, ‘fyou say so,” Sorin said agreeably. “Still wouldn’t’ve stayed t’gether.”

“Because I’m a minion?”

“Because I’m an invert,” Sorin said, and then his brain caught up to his mouth and he froze, eyes snapping open again.

Oh, damn it.

“…Huh,” Rozalia said. “…I should be furious about that, but somehow I’m still angrier about the betraying the Viscountess bit.”

Sorin blinked. And then he started to laugh, helplessly, dissolving into coughing almost immediately. Rozalia pulled him upright again, forced his head into a position to reopen his airway.

“Breathe,” she said. Sorin breathed.

“Schtill got him?” came a worried voice from the other side of the room—that was Milosh—oh, right, the jaegers.

“I will let you know if I don’t,” Rozalia said, sounding exasperated. “Sorin, look at the solution. It’s coating the stirrer now. This thick enough?”

Sorin finished wheezing, checked the stirrer she was holding… yeah, okay, that was done.

“Jus—add some’ve my blood to it,” he said. “’S got the venom in it, should—“he gasped, swallowed. “Should finish it off.”

A minor commotion started on the jaeger side of the room. Hrmgh… Rozalia ignored it. She pulled a little paring knife over and picked up one of his hands, nicking a finger—ow—and squeezing until a drop of blood fell out into the mixture.

For a second, nothing happened, and then another smoke cloud burst from the container, spreading thick, white smoke through the room. Sorin turned his head away, coughing again—well, trying to, he was so _tired_ , he barely had the energy.

“Finally,” Rozalia said, and turned Sorin around, deposited him on a bench. “Stay there, I’ll strain it out for you.”

“Mm,” Sorin said. Yeah, like he was going to go somewhere at this point. Was she expecting him to stand up and dance a little jig?

“Here,” Rozalia said, and a bucket was shoved into his stomach. He _oophed_ , fingers closing on it entirely by instinct.

“ _Ow_ ,” he said pointedly.

“You’ll live,” Rozalia said blithely. “Or you will once you’ve drunk this, anyway,” and she handed him a beaker with the solution. “Exactly ten milliliters, the book said. Should it be more or less from your modifications?”

Sorin shook his head, took a deep breath, and downed the mixture in three gulps.

It was thick—he choked on it, covered his mouth with his hand, forced himself to swallow again—started to cough as soon as his throat was clear, big, heaving hacks that shook his entire body, forced his eyes closed, made his chest _ache_ from it. He—he wasn’t cold anymore, he was _burning up_ , sweating again, vision going gray—

\--the part of his mind that was still, even now, in the madness place, pointed out that, no, actually, his vision was genuinely going gray. A gray haze was covering everything, even as his eyes watered and his hair stuck to his forehead and neck and his back _stung_ where the rash was, and… and he was coughing something up—

“Vat _iz_ dat schtoff?” Veli. He sounded _alarmed_.

“Venom,” Rozalia said. “Don’t come over here, I am serious. It’s almost as dangerous coming out of his pores as it is coming from the spider. Sorin, spit. That is what the bucket is for.” Sorin spat.

The fluid was black.

 _Red fire_ , Sorin thought, before another coughing fit took him, shook him right down to the bones. He could feel the blanket sticking to his skin, wet and clingy—that was _venom_ he was sweating out. This was because of a _spider bite_ , a little—he’d never even _imagined_ —

\--Rozalia had said… she didn’t know how those spiders had gotten here. They weren’t indigenous to the area, Sorin had never heard of them before. The _jaegers_ had never heard of them before, or they wouldn’t have eaten them—

\--Someone had put them there on purpose.

To kill Sorin.

The coughing subsided again, and Sorin spat one more time, slumped over the bucket. God, he was so tired.

“Are you done for now, do you think?” Rozalia. Right. Sorin nodded, forehead pressed to his crossed arms. He was starting to be cold now, the liquid on his skin evaporating and leaving behind a sticky, foul-smelling residue. He shivered. “Okay, I’m going to clean you up, and then you can sleep.”

“Mm,” Sorin said. Sleep. God, yes. But—“Need ta—give the jaegers—“ he started, forgot what he was saying halfway through the sentence.

“I will,” Rozalia told him, firmly. “I promise. But you need to rest. You’re covered in venom and probably dehydrated and exhausted from the fever. There is nothing more you need to do.”

“But—“

“Sorin.” Sorin stopped talking. “You’re done. I’ll take it from here. Rest.”

Sorin started to protest, he really did, but the exhaustion took over before he could so much as draw breath. He slept.

* * *

_1_

Sorin woke up and everything hurt, the sheet sticking to his back and pulling away painfully from the—the rash? Must have opened—already gray from venom, and he choked on the liquid in his mouth and crawled to the end of the bed and coughed it out onto the floor—

\--oh god, the jaegers.

He hadn’t dosed the jaegers. They were going to _die_ because someone was trying to get to Sorin and it would be all his fault—

He tried to stand up. A hand—bigger than a humans, gloved—shoved him back down. “Master, hyu haff to schtay in de bed.”

Sorin forced his eyes open—they stuck from the venom, the film making everything a dull, translucent gray—turned his head to look—there she was. Stanislava wasn't in her hat (so strange), but she _was_ now wearing a pair of hospital scrubs at least, and she still looked so worried—

\--they’d been so worried.

All his fault.

“Where—“ he started, and then his throat caught and he started choking again, painfully. A bucket appeared underneath him, and he coughed into that for a bit and then spat.

Hrmgh, that was a dissatisfying amount of black gunk for how exhausting that was. Sorin collapsed back on the pillow.

No, wait, he had to—

“Master, _schtay down_.”

“Where’re—Lyubo ‘n Zbign’v ‘n Dario ‘n—“

“Dey iz fine,” Stani said firmly. “Dey iz getting de venom out of deir systems chust like hyu in de odder room.”

Sorin blinked. “But… dosage. With—mm, higher healing capacity and—evaporation, might need—“ He lost the train of thought, blackness clawing at his brain again—no, he had to save them, they were _his_ and he—

“Dey took de same as hyu,” Stani told him, “iz vorking fine, bot hyu ken check vhen hyu iz better dat iz getting all ov it out, hokay? Iz more important _hyu_ get all de venom out.” That wasn’t _true_ , that—Ugh, he couldn’t think, everything ached. And the smell was getting to him now, cloying and thick and sticky. He tried to wipe some off his face and just ended up smearing it over a wider area, cringed, turned his head so he was face down on the sheet.

Stani used a corner of the sheet to wipe some of the venom off the side of Sorin’s face, then picked up something from the side table. “Turn dis vay, Master, Miz Rozalia says hyu haff to drink vhen hyu vake op.”

Red fire, _water_. That sounded _fantastic_. “Rinse hyu mouth first,” Stani warned. “Miz Rozalia says svallow as leedle as possible or dis tek even longer to finish.”

Sorin did what he was told, swishing water around his mouth and spitting into the bucket before downing the whole glass.

Water tasted _amazing_ , best thing ever—ugh, drank too fast. He collapsed back on the blankets, still thirsty.

“Got you playin’ nursemaid?” he murmured, fighting his closing eyes.

Stani snorted. “Ve iz takink shifts. Hyu iz de best vun, Dario iz all clumpy fur und grumpy. Hy get new sheets und gown und tings now, und ve get de rest of dat off hyu, hokay? Efferyting iz fine, hyu chust rest, now—“

Sorin fell asleep before she could finish her sentence.

* * *

_2_

“How are the others,” Sorin asked before Rozalia was fully in the room. Rozalia paused mid-step and gave him the driest look Sorin had ever seen, before rolling her eyes and placing her hands on her hips. _Oh, great_ , Sorin thought. Now _what have I done_?

“First of all,” she began in the most obnoxious lecturing voice Sorin had _ever heard_ , wow, that was impressive,“I can’t tell you without their permission, because it is against the ethical code of this hospital to do so. Second of all, even if I that were not the case, I couldn’t tell you because they’ve been refusing treatment from any of the medical professionals in this facility. I haven’t even been in the room since they took the antivenom doses in with them two days ago and closed the door. Use those vocal chords you just showed full access to by asking _me_ and ask them yourself.”

Sorin took a deep breath and shoved down the first three responses that came to mind. “I would,” he started, slowly, “except that every time I try to get up, one of your nurses comes in wailing about me overexerting myself, and I get shoved back onto the bed. I’m told I have _you_ to thank for that, by the way, thanks _so much_.”

“You’re welcome,” Rozalia said haughtily, pulling on a pair of gloves as she approached the bed. “I do _try_ to keep my patients alive and on the mend, so glad to hear you’re being forced to let me. Roll over and let me see the scab on your back, it needs to be cleaned.”

Sorin sighed. Of course it did. And once it was done he’d be so _drained_ from how much the whole thing hurt that he’d fall right back to sleep, and then when he next woke up he’d be forced to either try to pry his answers out of whatever jaeger had come to hover at him (thus far unsuccessfully, they were surprisingly good at evasion for a group that purported to be so straightforward, and usually that was a good thing but _not when they were using it on him_ ) or to try to sneak out before the nurses noticed and came back in to fret him back into bed.

He was so _tired_ of being in this bed. It had only been _two days_ and he was about ready to climb the walls.

“Sometime this century, if you please,” Rozalia sniped, and Sorin rolled his eyes at her, carefully peeled himself off the bottom sheet with a sigh. It stung—the scab was oozing, and it had been determined that bandaging would keep too much of the venom in his system and hurt too much coming off to be worth the bother. He bit down on a curse and flopped down onto his stomach, grimacing. Ugh, he really _would_ stop laying on his back, but if he didn’t the whole thing started to _throb_ after a while, and… hrmgh.

Rozalia tsked. “We’re going to have to change your sheets again, I see.”

“So sorry I was bitten by a Spark-made venomous spider,” Sorin griped. “Can you get it over with, please?”

“You don’t need to be a _jerk_ about it, honestly! Not everything I say is meant as an insult! I should just make you lie on this disgusting thing now—“

Sorin tuned her out and closed his eyes as she started scrubbing at his back. It really did hurt—they had to scrape the scabs off, and then puncture the inflamed areas to let the venom out where his skin had sealed over, and the whole thing stung and smelled awful and his back _hurt_ after, like someone had stripped the skin off in sheets and left it bare to the elements. He gritted his teeth, focused on breathing instead. One good thing about this, he now fully appreciated the miracle of a completely clear airway.

“So were you ever going to mention?” Rozalia asked, casually doing something that felt remarkably like she was stabbing him with a needle the size of his finger.

“ _Ow_ ,” he said, annoyed, and turned his head so he was face down in the cool pillow. “Mention what?”

“…Of course, you haven’t been paying attention to a _word_ I’ve been saying, have you? I swear, Sorin Petrescu, if you do not stop being a condescending jerk I am going to—“ Rozalia cut herself off, sighed. “Were you ever,” she said, in a tone that implied she was trying to be as clear as possible for an imbecile, “going to mention that you found out that you’re descended from the Heterodynes?”

Sorin had been about to say something perhaps a bit mean about treating people like they were idiots when they were in hospital beds under Rozalia’s care. He froze mid-word, snide return dying on his lips.

Oh, sweet lightning. This was bad.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Rozalia snorted. “You’re tighter than a strung bow, Sorin. You always were terrible at lying. I don’t know why you’re bothering to try to keep this under wraps, honestly, anyone with half a brain could get any secret you have out of you with only half an hour of concerted effort.”

Sorin squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. “…What gave me away?”

Rozalia sighed, let up a little on his back. “To be honest? This conversation gave you away, just now. I hope whoever has been teaching you to lie somehow felt you confirming my suspicious just now and is _ashamed_ of you, seriously. Now, if what you want to know what made me _suspicious_ …” She hesitated, turned away. Sorin heard her pouring something into a bucket, heard the wet _plop_ of the rags she’d been using hitting whatever cleaning fluid she’d brought. “That wasn’t you. That was the jaegers.”

Sorin’s head shot up. “The _jaegers_ told you?”

“Mm… well. No. They… Oh, red fire.” Rozalia sighed, shoved a curl off her forehead with a covered forearm. “I know what it looks like when a minion is watching his master die,” she said, flatly. “I’ve seen a lot of it around here. They weren’t acting like they don’t belong to you.” She shrugged. “That, and they called you Master more than once in that lab, and… to be frank, everyone knows who the jaegermonsters’ masters were.” She looked at him pointedly.

…Well, damn. Sorin sighed. “I can see your point.”

“Mm,” Rozalia said. “So, to get back to my previous question, _were you going to mention to the Doctor that you are a Heterodyne_?”

“…No,” Sorin said, flatly. “And considering someone just _tried to kill me_ , and there aren’t all too many reasons why they’d bother, I think it’s pretty obvious why.”

Rozalia snorted, turning to take the rag back out of her bucket and wring it out before turning back to her task of skinning Sorin with it. “Trust me, I wanted to kill you well before I knew you were a Heterodyne.”

“Haha, so funny.” Sorin rolled his eyes. He… wasn’t actually sure how to deal with this situation, to be frank. It was possible other people had figured it out in the past, but nobody had ever confronted him with it, and… well, in his head, his accusers tended to be a bit more… heated, really. What was he supposed to do with Rozalia being a bit annoyed but no more than usual? “…What are you going to do now?” he asked finally.

“Hm? Do with…?”

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Sorin snapped. “You know what I mean!”

Rozalia sighed, making a wide swipe with her rag and then dropping it back into the bucket. “Nothing. Really, I just put a lot of effort into saving you—and now we are even, by the way—I’m not going to go off and put you in danger again immediately after settling the score, that would be a horrible waste of time and effort.”

“You’re not going to tell Doctor von Elbe?” Sorin asked, surprised.

“No,” Rozalia said, picking up her bucket. “I am not. At least, not unless it turns out that not knowing is putting him in more danger than _knowing_ would. As it stands, if someone goes to him and asks him if he is harboring the only known Heterodyne, he will be able to say no with perfect honesty, and that is a better shield than anything _else_ I can give him from this while you are here.”

Sorin relaxed, suddenly exhausted again. He was so _sick_ of being so tired. “Thank you,” he muttered.

“I’m not doing it for you,” Rozalia said briskly. “And trust me, if I were I would tell you. Lord knows it would be nice to be able to look down on you from the high road for a change.

“By the way, your rooms have been fumigated, and all of your belongings have been thoroughly scoured for anything spider-related, so you can move back in as soon as you’ve been cleared to leave the hospital if you’d like. I checked the documents myself, so I’d appreciate it if you could leash your guards from going after my subordinates for potentially knowing things they shouldn’t.”

Sorin blinked, and then cringed. Oh, yeah, he hadn’t even thought about that. “I’ll tell them,” he said.

“Mm. So would you like those rooms, or would you rather we set up something else for you?”

…Oh! Huh… “…Yeah, actually, maybe somewhere different,” he muttered, as his eyes started to close.

“I thought so,” Rozalia said. “I’d already started setting up a different option, but I needed your say-so to begin moving things over. I’ll send the jaegers down their hats and weapons, too, so they needn’t worry about going back either. Now, would you like me to change your sheet for you, or should I send in the jaeger skulking in the hall to help you with that?”

Sorin blinked, and then burst out laughing. He could feel himself falling asleep again, limbs and eyelids heavy, room almost spinning from it. He forced himself to open his eyes. “Yeah, just—send in—“ He yawned, cutting himself off.

Rozalia took pity. “Absolutely,” she said, even as she shouldered the door to his room open. “I’ll send him right in. You should let yourself sleep afterwards, though. You’re on the mend, but you’re still not _well_. I’ll be back to check on you this evening.”

“Okay,” Sorin said, and forced his eyes open again. Rozalia gave him a look that clearly said she didn’t believe him, but she nodded anyway and walked out of the room. She closed the door behind her as she left.

* * *

_4_

It took another two days for Sorin to have enough energy and a good enough understanding of the rhythm of the hospital to sneak out of his room and go find his jaegers. It was, technically, very much against hospital policy and medical advice. He was still occasionally sweating venom at random intervals, which came on very suddenly and left him both very drained and very toxic wherever he happened to be at the time. Additionally, Doctor von Elbe had arrived the day before, and he’d been both absolutely horrified that this had happened in _his castle_ and just as insistent as Rozalia that the more time Sorin spent in bed asleep the better off he would be.

Sorin didn’t care. He’d finally pried an update out of Bosko yesterday, and Bosko had admitted that while the others were on the mend, their detoxes were still just as ongoing as Sorin’s, and in some cases had been… a bit more violent. Lyubo, for example, had been bitten the day before Sorin had, and considering that made three days before he got any antivenom and the spiders were supposed to kill in two, he’d basically been solid black for a day when it started leaking out of him and unable to keep anything down at all for another. Sorin wasn’t afraid to admit that he was worried.

The jaegers were just a room over—information he’d gotten out of Stani at one point; he thought maybe she’d been trying to get him to stay in bed by reassuring him that they were all a lot closer than he’d assumed, which of course had had the opposite affect—so Sorin didn’t actually have all that far to go. Which was good, because his endurance was _completely gone_ at the moment, and just the walk across the room and to the next door was exhausting. He had a bit of a scary moment when he thought maybe he was having another venom sweat, but no black began oozing out of his pores, so he decided he was probably alright and eased the door open, in case anyone was asleep.

And then he ducked as what was definitely an empty bedpan flew right at his head, ricocheting off the far wall of the hallway with a resounding _crash_.

Sorin stared at the five jaegers, all in various states of disarray, none of them in bed. The five jaegers stared back, identical looks of open-mouthed shock on their faces. Wordlessly, Sorin stepped in and closed the door behind him.

“…Master Sorin!” Zbignev stood up from his crouch, stepping forward with a look of concern on his face. “Hyu should be in bed!”

“Jah, Master, hyu izn’t supposed to be here,” Lyubo added, shifting and leaving a dull gray handprint on the bedpost he’d been holding on to. “Ve izn’t supposed to be op yet becawz ov der sveats und—“

“Were you five playing keep-away with an empty bedpan,” Sorin interrupted. “While Lyubo is leaking venom all over the room.”

“…Ve ken clean de bedpan easy, though, iz vot dey iz made for,” Lyubo insisted, letting go of the bedpost and crossing his arms.

“Hy dun tink dot’s de point he vos makink,” Premisl told him sotto voce, putting the chair he’d clearly been using as a shield down and sitting in it like nothing was happening.

“Vos _vun_ ov de points he vos makink,” Lyubo insisted, glaring.

“How are you standing in the middle of doing that?” Sorin asked, no longer able to help himself. “It lays me out for _hours_.”

“Eh,” Dario said, going from a posture like he was about to pounce on something to leaning casually against the wall (he squelched a little as he moved—wow, he was soaking wet, wasn’t he, Sorin hadn’t considered that the regular necessary washing would be pretty hard on someone all over fur). “Lyubo haz not schtopped leaking since ve get here und he takes der medicine. Iz only so long hyu ken lie dere being miserable befur hyu get bored und decide to do sumting else.”

“…I don’t think that’s how exhaustion works,” Sorin said, starting to grin in spite of himself.

“Says _hyu_ ,” Lyubo returned, nose in the air. “Und ennyvay, hyu made it all de vay here from hyu room, so hyu ken’t be _dat_ tired, yaz?”

Sorin blinked. “…I sort of _am_ ,” he admitted. “I am just also very determined. Can someone please get me a chair.”

The five of them stared at him again, and then suddenly they were all moving, Chestibor grabbing his shoulders before he fell over and Dario shoving Premisl’s chair behind him—Premisl wasn’t in it anymore, fortunately—and Zbignev throwing a blanket on him, because why just do something when you could overdo it, honestly. He rolled his eyes at Zbignev. Zbignev looked utterly unrepentant and went to go sit on one of the beds. He casually chucked another blanket at Lyubo, who had apparently done his part in the last flurry of activity by placing himself on the bed furthest from the door, like Sorin was going to catch tiredness from him or something, who even knew. Lyubo caught the blanket and wrapped himself up. The five of them went back to staring at Sorin.

“…Okay,” Sorin said, and sighed. “You’re all ridiculous, first of all. Secondly, how are all of you doing? I’d wanted to adjust the dosages a little bit for you, but I… ah…”

“Fell aschleep,” Zbignev offered.

“Passed out,” Chestibor suggested.

“Fainted,” Dario said with authority, corners of his lips pinched like he was trying not to laugh. “Like a _consumptive maiden_.”

“Screw you,” Sorin said, grinning again. “Yes, that.”

“Ve iz fine, Master,” Zbignev assured him, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Really! Iz only Lyubo gettink all venomy occasionally since yesterday, und iz schlowing down a lot now! Ve iz chust vaiting for him to be done. Ve even iz vearing our hats again!” Lyubo, who was distinctly _not_ wearing a hat, sighed and slumped. The movement disturbed the venom in his hair, causing it to lose its fight with gravity and plop onto his nose to run down his face. He wrinkled his nose, grimaced. Sorin cringed in sympathy.

“That is weird,” Sorin said. “It’s been constant? Did that happen to the rest of you? Maybe it’s just because you ate them instead—“ The others were shaking their heads.

“Naw,” Premisl said. “Vos happening more frequent vit Zbignev, bot it schtopped lest night und hazn’t happened since.”

“Hy tink iz chust timing, honestly,” Zbignev said. “Hy eats de spider… hrm, mebbe five hours befur hyu gets bit, Master, so hy vos at 48 hours for sure. Und Lyubo vos befur me by about a day, so.”

“…Mm,” Sorin said, leaning back, chewing his lip as he thought. “That… actually makes sense. I mean, I can’t tell for sure unless I do some tests—“

“Master, _no_.”

“No labs, Master!”

“Hyu iz supposed to be resting!”

“--Which I don’t have access to, because I can’t get to a lab,” Sorin finished, giving the jaegers a pointed look. They all settled back down again, looking sheepish. “And… ah, probably wouldn’t know how to do yet anyway, to be honest.” He shrugged sheepishly. “But… I mean, the venom’s probably in _everything_ by now, Lyubo, since you kept living way past when it was supposed to shut you down. I think I read something about that? Purging a toxin from some organs taking longer than others, I mean.”

“Dot meks vit de sense,” Lyubo said, nodding cheerfully and spattering the wall behind him with black spots. Sorin grimaced again. “Master Hyde made a bomb vunce dat de pipple vould inhale und den deir muscles all atrophy ven de blood bring it to dem. Like dot, jah?”

“…The worst part is I can’t even say no,” Sorin said, sighing. “Since we are, in fact, talking about something that was created for assassination.” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “I wonder if you _do_ need another dose,” he murmured. “Since there’s so much, I mean. The antivenom wasn’t really made with someone who’d had the venom in their system for three days in mind…”

“…Ah,” Lyubo said, looking a little green. “If iz hokay, Master, hy vould rather vait out _dis_ dose und see if iz schtill in mine system. Iz hyu choice, really, hy dunno ennyting about dis schtoff, bot iz chust…” he grimaced. “Vos preddy urgh de furst time, und iffen iz vorking schtill…”

“Iz definitely doink _dot_ ,” Zbignev pointed out, wryly. “Hyu need anodder bath, Lyubo, hyu iz drippink again.”

“Noooooooooo.” Lyubo flopped over onto the bed, which, Sorin noticed, was covered in clean white sheets.

“Better den beink covered in der schmelly venom,” Premisl pointed out, wrinkling his nose.

“Hyu only say dot becawz hyu only had to haff tree,” Dario muttered, glaring at Premisl sullenly. Premisl snickered.

“…I wasn’t going to say,” Sorin said, “but you look a bit like a swamp monster, Dario.”

“He iz molding,” Zbignev explained.

“Probably,” Dario agreed.

“He iz not dry since he takez der bath in de lab,” Lyubo explained, still flat on the bed and getting black sludge all over the sheets. “He keeps haffing to vash de venom out ov hiz fur.”

“Und hy schmell like soap,” Dario added, sullenly.

“He doez,” Chestibor agreed. “Iz verra schtrong.”

Sorin tried very hard not to snicker at Dario’s predicament and failed. “Ah,” he said. “I can see how that would be an… unforeseen issue.” He looked around the room, eyes falling on a lamp in the corner, and the iron flourishes in the headboard—they looked a bit like propellers, actually…

…Huh.

“You want to be dry?” he asked Dario, as the world sharpened and focused on the headboard.

“…Yaz, pliz,” Dario said, eyes widening and saddening until he looked like nothing so much as a wet kitten.

Sorin grinned. “Good, because I am bored as sin, and I have an idea. Zbignev, rip that pinwheel pattern out of the headboard without breaking it. Chestibor, hand me that lamp.”                                                                        

“Oooooooooooh.”

After that, there was a bit of a flurry of activity, the end result being when Veli slammed the door open an hour later, Sorin was pointing the automated super-powered fan he’d rigged up at Dario and Dario was tying himself very firmly to the bed with a few of the sheets, which was being further weighted down by Zbignev _and_ Chestibor while Premisl braced Dario from behind.

“Vat,” Velimir said, a… strange note in his voice, “de dumboozle iz going _on in here_?”

Sorin turned, mildly annoyed at being interrupted. “I’m drying Dario off,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What does it look like—“ The rest of what he was saying died in his throat.

Velimir looked…

“Hyu iz supposed to be in hyu room,” Veli said, tense as a compressed spring. “Hyu iz not supposed to be in here drying Dario, Master, hyu iz supposed to be _resting_. Und hyu iz _definitely_ not supposed to be schneaking out vitout telling os vhere hyu iz going _four days_ after somevun tried to keel hyu.”

 _Master_. Sorin winced, shut his mouth with a snap. He felt like he’d suddenly been submerged in ice water, like the madness place had been ripped out from under him like a carpet.

Veli _never_ called Sorin ‘Master’, not unless they were standing in front of one of the generals, or the Baron, or Sorin’s mother, and there was absolutely no way to call Sorin anything else.

He must be furious.

And he should be, Sorin thought, suddenly drowning in guilt. He was right, Sorin had scared them all horribly just a few days ago, had nearly been _killed_ by some unknown assailant, and here he was ignoring every doctor recommendation he’d been given in order to sneak out without a guard so he could—

He—

He hadn’t meant to worry any of them. Especially not Veli. He never wanted—He’d just wanted—

“If someone had just _told_ me how they were doing when I _asked_ —“ he started, sharp and defensive, and Veli winced like he’d been slapped. Sorin shut his mouth again, miserable. “I just wanted to check on them,” he muttered, and turned away before Veli could respond. “I’m almost done, and then I’ll go back, give me a second.”

“…Ve dun haff to, Master,” Dario said sheepishly. “Iz really hokay—“

“Shut up,” Sorin interrupted, and turned his fan on. Dario flew backwards, shoving Premisl into the wall with an _ooph_ , momentarily pinned in place by the blast. Ack! Sorin turned it down a bit, held it on him a few more seconds before switching it off. The release in pressure had Dario falling forward again immediately, only failing to end up face first on the floor thanks to the sheets tied around his wrists and waist.

“…Ow,” he said conversationally, and shoved himself up, blinking. His fur had puffed up to three times its usual size, making him look more like a red ball of fluff than a furry and relatively human-shaped construct. Sorin blinked at him, watched Premisl, Chestibor, and Zbignev do the same.

On the other side of the room, Lyubo snorted.

Chestibor cracked up, which set off Premisl, gasping as he tried to catch his breath from being pancaked to the wall. Zbignev curled in on himself, trying desperately to keep his guffaws silent. Dario struck a pose, batted his ridiculously big eyes. “How do hy look? Iz hy ready for mine portrait now?”

Chestibor wheezed, reached over blindly to pat Dario on the floof.

“Hyu iz… verra prettyyyhehehehee—“

“Thenk hyu,” Dario said, closing his eyes and sticking his nose in the air snootily. “Hy do try.”

Sorin grinned, chuckled along with them, and then sighed. Veli was still standing in the door, and he wasn’t laughing along with the others. Alright, time to go back to bed, he _had_ promised. Sorin stood up from his chair.

The room jerked to the side, dizzily, Sorin’s ears going hot as blood rushed to his head, and he stumbled, knees giving a little as his stomach rolled—

Veli caught him before Sorin had even had a chance to _attempt_ to recover from the head rush, swept Sorin up into a princess carry and turned towards the door in the same motion. “Bed now,” he said, firmly, and marched from the room, and Sorin barely had a chance to look over his shoulder at all five of the other jaegers on their feet, eyes wide and startled and halfway through what must have been lunges of their own before the door _snapped_ closed from a well-placed kick from Veli’s hoof.

Sorin could _feel_ himself blushing, face hot and prickly and stomach rolling with guilt. Veli hadn’t said _I told you so_ , but it was heavily implied by the fact that he hadn’t said a word past the declaration that he was taking Sorin to bed, hadn’t looked down at him, jaw set and eyes facing straight ahead.

Sorin almost told Veli to put him down, that he was fine, it had just been a head rush, he could walk, and then he… didn’t. He sighed instead, leaned into Veli’s chest, let himself go limp all over. Pressed his still-burning face into Veli’s neck so he wouldn’t have to look at Veli being annoyed at him, guiltily enjoying the closeness and the care through even the irritation and the _concern_ that implied—

Sorin reflected that he was probably a terrible person for letting Veli think he was far sicker than he was right now so he wouldn’t get scolded, and kept doing it anyway. Veli sighed, breath ruffling Sorin’s hair, and let Sorin do it, even though he wasn’t stupid and probably knew Sorin was pretending. Sorin stole a glance, and… yeah, Veli didn’t look fooled at all. He looked… maybe a little annoyed still, but also a little amused, and there was also that softness to his eyes, a tilt to his lips that he only directed at Sorin. His arms tightened around Sorin, once, briefly. Sorin hid his face in Veli’s neck again and guiltily took what had been offered.

For all that, Veli didn’t say anything as he finished crossing the short distance back to Sorin’s room, and the even shorter distance to Sorin’s _bed_. He said nothing as he put Sorin down, nothing as he pulled the blanket up to cover Sorin’s legs and put it in easy reach if Sorin wanted to pull it up further, and nothing as he turned away, presumably to leave the room. Sorin’s heart sank.

“Sorry,” he whispered, feeling small and stupid and ashamed. Veli stopped halfway across the room and sighed again, shoulders slumping. He turned around, gave Sorin a wry, tired look, and walked back, kneeling at the side of the bed so he’d be more or less at Sorin’s eye level.

“Iz hokay,” he said, just as quietly, combed Sorin’s hair back off his face, all warm and close and tender. “Hy just…” he stopped, looked at Sorin like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “Next time, maybe tell me befur hyu go somevhere like dat?” Sorin winced. “Hy von’t schtop hyu, hy promise! Hy… Iz not mine place to schtop hyu doink vhat hyu vant to do all de time,” Veli added, sounding almost pleading. “Und even if it _vas_ , hy know hyu don’t ektually _need_ dat, hyu iz not a kid! Iz just… ve can’t protect hyu if ve don’t know vhere hyu _iz_ , boss.”

“…I guess that’s more relevant than usual right now,” Sorin muttered, sighing.

“Heh.” Veli smiled at him. “Naw, iz just more obvious right now, hy tink. Bot…” Veli paused again, slumping a little, rolled his eyes at himself. “Ve vas beink… maybe overzealous about de keeping hyu in here,” he admitted. “Becawz ov de… more obvious.”

“Because someone tried to kill me,” Sorin said flatly. “Let’s just call it what it is, if you please, I’m not fragile, I can take it. You didn’t have any trouble saying it before when you were yelling at me, you know.”

Veli snorted, smiled at him, a little sheepish. He took his hand away from Sorin’s hair—Sorin felt weirdly bereft—drummed it restlessly on the bed. “Hokay, yez. Becawz somevun tried to keel hyu. Und ve don’t know who, or vhen, really, or vhere dey put de spider in hyu tings, or even _vhy_ , though,” he gave Sorin a wry look, “hy admit hy have mine guesses for dat last vun.”

“…Yeah,” Sorin said, and sighed.

“Sorry,” Veli said, voice going quiet again. Sorin shook his head, don’t worry about it, not your fault.

“I won’t sneak off without telling someone where I’m going again,” he said.

“Mm,” Veli said, looking unconvinced. “Vell, try not to until ve catch whoever vas schtupid enough to attack hour Heterodyne right in front ov os, jah?”

Sorin snorted. “Yeah. Okay, message received, I’ll be more careful.”

“Thenk hyu,” Veli said, and smiled for Sorin again, and Sorin smiled back and _ached_ to kiss him, wished he could.

Veli stood up, and the spell was broken. Sorin closed his eyes. He was tired again—not sleepy, just… spread thin and achy, like he was seventy-two instead of twenty-two. It sucked. He was so _tired_ of being tired. “Hy iz gonna go out und let hyu schleep, hokay?” Veli asked, like he’d somehow read Sorin’s mind. “Hyu can just call if hyu need someting, hy iz here another few hourz und hy come in und tell hyu ven de shift iz over.”

 _I want_ , Sorin started to think, and then shook his head, sighed. “Alright,” he said instead.

“Alright,” Veli said, and turned to walk towards the door.

“…Veli,” Sorin called, before he could leave. Velimir turned immediately, like he’d been waiting for Sorin to stop him, or like he’d hoped for it, or…

“Yaz?” he asked.

Sorin hadn’t figured out what he was going to say yet. He’d just… not wanted Veli to leave. “…Has there been any mail in the last few days?”

Veli frowned, but came back over and sat down. “Hy dun tink so, but ve haven’t checked, really.”

“…Oh,” Sorin said. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Hy see,” Veli said, smirking. “If hyu promise to be here vhen hy get back, hy can go und schteal a pack of cards from Blazh?”

“…Yeah,” Sorin said. “Okay.”

* * *

Sorin, c/o Gladehall Hospital

Sorin!

I happened upon Velimir in the Market the day before last, and he told me that you were in the hospital and were as yet unable to have Visitors to your room due to the quarantined nature of your stay. I am so sorry to hear that! I would have inquired sooner, as I had not heard from you since Velimir cancelled our meeting for reason of your contracting a Fever, but I had assumed, perhaps erroneously, that we had simply missed each other in the Market. I would ask if you are well, but that is obviously not the case, so instead I will ask what is the matter?

I hope you are making a speedy recovery, or at least that you will soon be well enough to accept Visitors. In the meantime, please do keep me abreast of the current happenings in your recovery! If necessary, I shall promise to the good Doctor to only handle your letters with gloves and to wash hands immediately after reading.

Be well!

_Tamara_

P.S. I hope this letter makes its way to you smoothly! As I addressed it, it occurred to me I did not know your Family name, nor the room you happen to be in!

* * *

_5_

Tamara, The Blue Brick Inn, Gladehall

Tamara,

I think we both may be in the same boat with family names. I don’t think you ever told me yours, either!

I am doing better. At this point, I think I am mostly bored, and increasingly frustrated that the issue that resulted in quarantine has not yet run its course.

As to what the matter is, I’m sorry to say it’s a long story. Or a very short one, depending on your point of view. Apparently, someone tried to kill me. They used venomous Spiders not indigenous to the area, so it’s more or less a Miracle that someone recognized the rash and symptoms. So far, we have no idea who made the attempt, or when, or why, but ( _the writing becomes increasingly dark and jagged_ ) I have to say, I am Very Interested in Making their Acquaintance. I suspect we have A Lot to Discuss….

* * *

_6_

…You must feel exceedingly lucky that someone other than Doctor von Elbe was able to Diagnose and Treat you while he was away! I had heard from Velimir that this was not the case during the initial onset of your illness, and I shudder to think of the planning that must have gone on behind the scenes to Orchestrate such an opportunity for someone to make such an attempt….

* * *

_6_

…That said, Tamara, I really do not think I agree that the Doctor had anything to do with this, if that’s what you’re implying. He was absolutely Horrified to come back and discover that the entire affair even happened, for one, and for another it was his Chief Minion who helped me. I am not sure if you have met her, but she and I do not really get along, so if her Master wished me dead she would have had no reason at all to step in. In fact, I am a lot more concerned that the people here will get caught in the crossfire, although so far there has been no indication that this was not a one-off attempt.

Speaking of von Elbe, he’s been riding me rather hard about the fact that I have an admittedly terrible traveling medical kit. He’s been putting one together himself, and has threatened to teach me why everything is there and how to use it! He’s got me reading this absolutely terrifying text about all the ways I could have died by accident the past year or so traveling through the Wastelands, and claims that if I don’t have nightmares by the end of the read he can give me the second volume. Halfway through the Book, I think there won’t be any need for the second volume….

* * *

_7_

…Sorin, I ask as your friend that you take care. It is Heartening to hear that there is no indication of other attempts, but I venture to say that there has been no indication that this is not due primarily to the Assassin biding his time, either. I have grown quite fond of you, and I enjoy our talks Immensely. I would be most put out if you wandered into a trap and got yourself injured or killed because you thought too well of people. It sounds absolutely Horrible to say, but if ever there was a time to be suspicious of those around you, now is that time.

It is wonderful to hear that your tests have finally come back with positive levels! I shall endeavor to visit you before you are sent off from the hospital, perhaps tomorrow or the next day. I hope that you are still following Doctor’s Orders as you have been—despite your insistence that you are going to drown should you have to drink one more glass of water—and that you are finally strong enough to leave well before I get the opportunity to visit. Perhaps I shall come tomorrow afternoon and find that you were Discharged just that morning, and instead be met once again with Velimir telling me that I shall have to try again another time! I think this may actually be the best outcome we can hope for, although I would like to see for myself that you are well!

Take care, my friend.

_Tamara_

* * *

“So what do you think?”

Velimir set the most recent letter down, lips pursed, and turned his head to look at Sorin. Sorin kept his face carefully neutral and looked back, waiting for the verdict.

“Hy tink,” Veli began, matter of fact and flat, “dat hyu should haff let me put a tail on her, und dat hy should do it now vhether hyu vant me to or not.”

Sorin winced, slumped until he was leaning back against the headboard of the hospital bed and pulled his knees up, wrapped his arms around them. He’d hoped…

He’d thought maybe…

It was just…

“Yeah,” he said, defeated. “I think you’d better.”

* * *

The thing was, Sorin wanted to trust Tamara, even though he knew he… really shouldn’t.

It was silly to feel lonely in the midst of eleven jaegers. He _liked_ them all, loved them even, at this point. He liked to think they were friends in addition to everything else they had to be. But the thing was, they just weren’t really all that _interested_ in the things that made Sorin excited—they tended to take his enthusiasm for new steel or a new form or a particularly elegant connection or weld with baffled, long-suffering amusement. Sparks, right? Smiths, right? What can you do? Guess it would make a good club in a pinch…

Tamara _got it_ in a way they really… didn’t. She had _opinions_ about metal, about building, about efficient uses of electric charge, about automation. She wasn’t…hands on about it, really, but she had the theory down cold, and it was refreshing to be able to stretch his mental legs and knock ideas back and forth and argue a point and be met with interest or even _resistance_ instead of blank-eyed obedience or vaguely condescending agreement. It felt like being an apprentice again, like being part of a group of students again, it was _fun_ —

The thing was, every instinct Sorin had told him that there was _something going on_ with Tamara, and that it was nothing good.

It was so unfair Sorin could choke on it.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

_10_

Sorin’s nightmare book turned out to be very informative as to the types of diseases and injuries possible in many of the Spark-occupied areas they traveled through, and surprisingly engaging for all it was a 500 page medical text.

It was also very convincing. Velimir was halfway through the section on Spark-boosted leprosy, and despite the fact that it was actually impossible for Veli to contract leprosy normally, the book had him half convinced he’d had it for years and simply hadn’t noticed.

“Hy bet dey vouldn’t even tell me if hy haz leprosy,” Veli told Snappy, mock-forlorn. “Hy bet dey vould tink iz funny to see if hy realize on mine own.” Snappy, who was just up from naptime, gave a cheerful buzz at being addressed and then trotted itself in a circle around the room again.

Could you die from leprosy? Veli flipped to the end of the section to see.

…Yes. Urgh, and the final stages looked pretty gross, too.

He wondered if…

The door to the room opened. Veli’s head snapped up, half out of his seat, and had just enough time to register that it was Sorin walking in before he was disappearing the book under his ass, forcing his face into an innocent expression. Stani, standing just behind Sorin, caught the movement and raised her eyebrow, pinching her lips at him significantly. Damn, definitely going to be teased. He opened his mouth to defend himself—

\--and the words died in his throat, because walking in behind Stani was, of all people, Tamara.

What the damnation was _Tamara_ doing in Sorin’s rooms? Veli was pretty sure they had talked about this.

“Hey,” Sorin said distractedly, eyes sliding off of Veli almost as soon as he focused on him, and walked straight past without any other greeting. Snappy got a pat on the head as it trotted up buzzing a greeting, and then the door to Sorin’s room was closing with a _snap_ , leaving Veli, Stani, Snappy, and the local spy in Sorin’s rooms at the Gladehall Castle. Which incidentally had Sorin’s things and the belongings of eleven jaegers scattered all over it, as well as some pretty sensitive documents that Veli had been leaving in a pile on the desk in the hopes that they would mysteriously complete themselves.

…Well then. Veli shot a quick look at Stani under the brim of his hat. She stared back with a blank, pinched look on her face—yeah, Veli knew that look, that was the “Spark on a tear” look, what had set him off? He shrugged internally, got up to follow Sorin into the bedroom. He closed the door behind him.

“Hoy,” he said, quiet enough not to be heard through the door (they never soundproofed Sorin’s bedroom door, for pretty obvious reasons). “Vhere’s de fire?”

“Hm?” Sorin looked up from where he was shoving a bunch of tools into a satchel, a pouch of money clenched in his teeth. Veli raised an eyebrow.

“Going somevhere?”

“Drs amgt n’da—“ Sorin stopped, rolled his eyes at himself, and spit the pouch into his bag. “There’s a market in the next town over—Clardale, I think—for medical Sparkworks,” he said. “Tamara mentioned it a while ago, but…” he shrugged. “Anyway, she just told me that she’s _leaving_ tomorrow to go back to school, so today is basically the last day we can go.” He went decisively back to his tool-gathering.

Veli took a deep breath, and then stepped forward so he could have a conversation over the tool clinking without raising his voice loud enough to be heard in the other room. “Hokay, just to be clear: hyu iz dropping efferyting to rush off vit somevun who is very moch a schpy who iz hinting she knows dat pipple vant to hurt hyu, vitout any backup bot Stani, und hy iz only finding out becawz hy happened to be here.”

Sorin looked up and raised an eyebrow. “…Wow, it sounds really bad when you put it like that,” he admitted.

“ _No kidding_.”

“I’m still going, though,” Sorin continued, as though Veli hadn’t said anything, and went to the stack of books on his desk to rummage through. “Have you seen that book on ligament reconnection anywhere? I swear I had it the other night…”

“Boss—“ Veli started, closing the distance again. “Dis iz a really—“

“Book?”

“…No, hy dunno vhere it iz,” Veli said. “Hy think hyu should go another day, und mebbe not tell the schpy hyu iz leaving town.”

“I am going today,” Sorin said, dropping to his knees and crawling under the bed, “because Tamara’s engineering work is primarily focused on electric connections powering fine motor movements, and there’s a Spark at this thing that’s working on—ha! Found it.” Sorin crawled out with a book triumphantly clutched in his hand. “This place is a mess. What was I talking about?”

“Hy have no hydea,” Veli said. “Some Spark iz vorking on someting at de Market und hyu haff to bring Tamara becawz she knowz about electricity.”

“Oh right!” Sorin’s eyes sharpened on Veli’s, smile brightening the way it did when his mind was four steps ahead and half a world away. “No, it’s not the electricity I’m interested in, it’s the application to a small range of motion. The Spark is working on a sleeve to fit over an entire limb and snap on to re-electrify certain existing nerve endings in order to recreate a full range of motion. Current results are relatively short-lived, of course, as in the nerves end up frying in about two to three hours, and I believe the effect is currently way over human-normal, but for what I have in mind I think many of those issues will smooth themselves out on their own. I need someone who can walk me through the connections, though, so Tamara is—“

“Iz a _robot limb_?” Veli tried. “Dat iz not new, though, dat iz preddy common—“

“No no no.” Sorin crossed his arms, frowning at Veli like he was being dense on purpose. “It’s more like a sleeve—see, those exist too, but in general they just take over movement entirely for the limb. What this Spark is doing is revitalizing already-existing nerves… It’s supposed to actually heal the damage as it provides support!” Sorin threw his arms out in a “see?” gesture. “It’s an exoskeleton with nerve therapy built in! I was thinking about—about Grigor maybe, or Dragos’s knee--“

…Oh.

Oh! For them?

…Wow, suddenly this made a hell of a lot more sense.

…And now Veli had to tell Sorin it wasn’t a good idea anyway. Awgh. “Iz…” No, wait. “Hy think…” Urgh. “Hy dun think,” he started, carefully, “dat dey vould—“

“Why are you whispering?” Sorin interrupted.

Veli blinked. “Uh.”

Sorin narrowed his eyes, and then widened them in realization. “OH! Tamara. It’s because Tamara’s—argh, I don’t have _time_ for this!” And he turned on his heel before Veli could so much as _blink_ and wrenched the door open, marched through it and up to Tamara with his chin set on stubborn and his eyes boring holes into everything he looked at.

Tamara looked understandably rather startled, but to her credit did not turn around and run for her life.

“I have a confession to make,” Sorin told her before she could so much as open her mouth. “I lied about Velimir not being a jaeger because people get weird around jaegers and I didn’t want you to get weird about it in the middle of a crowded tavern and I figured I’d never see you again. But then we both went to Gladehall and you seem to be okay around Stani and also I think we all know that everyone knows that Veli’s a jaeger by now, it’s really stupid to keep pretending he’s not. So! Meet Sergeant Velimir.” He gestured to Veli, who’d made it to the door in time to feel very singled out, and then turned on his heel and headed back into the bedroom, slipping past Veli without so much as looking at him. “Give me one more minute, I’m almost done.”

Velimir looked from Sorin, who’d gone back to rummaging, to Tamara, who looked like someone had just sideswiped her with a train, to Stani, who was doubled over and nearly killing herself attempting not to laugh aloud.

“…Hy guess hy can drop de accent?”

Tamara burst into giggles. “Oh dear, that’s _dropping_ the accent?”

Stani wheezed, and finally dissolved into guffaws, knees hitting the ground as she laughed. No help there…

Alright, so options, and quickly. Veli could diffuse the situation, make it friendly—honestly, that was his first instinct, you didn’t get much out of someone who was scared unless you really committed to it, and they still didn’t know how much this woman knew, or about what—but...

He flicked a look at Stani, who was settling down, making herself comfortable against the wall, one knee bent casually. She raised an eyebrow at Veli, eyes flicking between Tamara and the bedroom and back. She shrugged, subtly.

Alright, clown act it was, then. “Hoy, as far as ve iz concerned, hyu iz de vunz vit de veird schpeaking,” he said, as cheerfully as he could manage, wagging his eyebrows at Tamara.

Tamara snickered again. “Well, I… suppose it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sergeant?” she tried, still smiling.

Urgh, okay, _that_ wasn’t happening. It wasn’t even his _actual rank_. “Hyu really can just call me Velimir,” he said, “Ve iz not very op vit de formalities in de Jaegermonster Army.”

“True dot, _Sarge_ ,” Stani managed, wiping her eyes and giving Veli a grin that didn’t even _try_ to be innocent. Veli narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, then turned pointedly back to Tamara.

“So vat iz dis science market thing hyu iz bringing our madboy to,” he asked, raising his eyebrows a bit and twisting his mouth into a moue. “He says hyu mentioned it to him bot hy dun remember hyu talking about it…”

Tamara frowned. “Oh, weren’t you there? It’s a traveling show more than a market, really, but you _can_ buy some pieces. It’s something I heard about at University, and I mentioned to Sorin that I wanted to go a little while ago, and we got to talking about some of the Sparks who’d be presenting—“

“Sounds like fun,” Veli lied. “Maybe ve come too und see de exhibitions? Stani?”

“Hoo, yaz,” Stani said. “Hy vos alreddy going, dere’s tings dot explode, Miz Tamara seyz.”

Tamara blinked, and then flashed Veli a polite smile, shifting from foot to foot. “That’d be great,” she said, not quite meeting Veli’s eyes. “I’ve been looking forward to it, it should be fun!”

…Huh, looked like little miss spy didn’t actually want to go, or at least didn’t want to go with an escort. Now, _that_ sounded interesting. Veli and Stani shared a quick look before Veli continued. “Iz nize ov hyu to take him vit hyu even though hyu haff to leave tomorrow.” He gave her a fatuous smile, let his eyes squint closed cheerfully. “He seems verra excited about it.”

“Mm,” Tamara said, non-committal.

“Iz hyu leaving in de afternoon?” he asked. “Maybe ve can help hyu pack on de vay back, or tomorrow morning maybe, since hyu iz taking time avay to bring os to de machine fair thing.”

“I…” Tamara sighed, slumping. “No, I’m leaving in the morning. And thank you for the offer, but I’ll be fine. I…” She shrugged. “Honestly, this wasn’t actually my idea! I just came by to say goodbye, and then the next thing I knew we were headed for the Castle so Sorin could pick up some tools and a few books... But I really do want to go! Or… I don’t mind going! It really should be fun!” She paused, gave Veli and then Stani a frankly bewildered look, like she was hoping for reassurance. Veli blinked at her.

Stani cracked up again. “Iz dis de first time Meester Sorin goes all Sparky bossy et hyu? Oh, sveetie, hy iz sorry about dot. He doesn’t do eet verra often, so hyu iz not on hyu guard, und den he turns on de _command_ und _whoosh_ , hyu iz halfvay op a vall vit a grappling hook schtill varm from de forge about to ketch a blimp.”

Tamara blinked at her, and then blushed to the roots of her hair, put her head in her hands. “Oh my sweet rivets,” she groaned. “I… this has never happened to me before!” She started to laugh a little, looking up with an embarrassed smile. “I don’t know that many Sparks, you see, and the ones I _do_ know… well, they don’t usually… order me around? I don’t know, I’ve never been—“

“Iz preddy common vhere ve come from,” Veli said. “Preddy common in Spark towns in general, ektually, hy iz sorprized it never happened to hyu, being raised in Gladehall. Pipple who settle in towns like dis do it for a _reason_.”

Tamara’s smile froze on her face. _Gotcha_ , Veli thought, vindictively. _You weren’t raised in Gladehall, kiddo, and we all know it_.

“I didn’t spend that much time at the Castle, and I’ve always been hardy,” Tamara said, polite mask crashing down so fast Veli almost heard it.

“Verra lucky,” Veli almost purred.

“Mm.”

Behind Tamara, Stani stood up, casually, and positioned herself so she just happened to be in range to grab someone running for the door. Veli opened his mouth to press a little harder.

“Okay!” In a show of truly spectacular poor timing, Sorin charged out of the bedroom, shattering the mood like a rock to a glass window. “I’m ready, let’s go.”

“…Sorin, I don’t know,” Tamara said, eyes latching onto Sorin like a lifeline. “It’s getting a bit late, now, and I really _do_ have to pack. Besides, the sky’s looking a bit dark, I think it’s going to rain—“

“It’s not going to rain,” Sorin said, with such conviction that Veli immediately believed him despite the damp ozone smell that had been permeating the air for most of the day.

That is, he believed him right up until about half a minute later, when thunder cracked so close to the castle that the stone floor actually shook with the vibrations, and the sky opened up. “ _Damn_ it,” Sorin shouted, rounding on the window like an attack dog, every inch a thwarted Spark. “ _No_ , no that is _not fair_. Hold on, I’ll fix that.”

“…You’ll fix the _rain_ ,” Tamara repeated, incredulous. Sorin’s head snapped in her direction, eyes spitting lightning to rival the, Veli had to admit, very impressive thunderstorm currently happening outside.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said.

Okay, time for a little creative redirection. Before Sorin started taking the room apart to create a water-powered electricity-resistant umbrella. “Iz de market outside?”

“Ah, yes,” Tamara said, eyes still locked on Sorin like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to follow him into hell or run screaming at the first sign of a wrench—d’aww, baby’s first Spark, that was cute.

“Und all de Spark things—dey iz mostly metal?” he continued, patiently.

“…Most of them, yes,” Tamara said, as she broke eye contact with Sorin to look at Veli. Sorin looked too, blinking like he was waking up from a bit of a daze. Veli resisted the urge to grin.

“So… von’t dey shut down becawz ov de rain? Hy mean, metal rusts most ov de time…” He gave them both his most guileless look.

“… _Damn it_ ,” Sorin shouted again, and turned around and _kicked_ the wall under the window. “ _No_. I won’t _stand_ for this, I will _hunt them all down_ and _drag them back_. Haven’t they ever heard of water-resistant coatings? Chromium steel? _Umbrellas_? Are they Sparks or _mice_? Will they _melt if they get wet_? I’ll _show them_ what—“ Sorin choked, teeth bared, chin set on mulish and body tight as a spring… and deflated all at once, like a punctured balloon.

 _Because he wants to fix us_ , Veli thought, unbidden, and watched helplessly as Sorin sighed, defeated, and put the rage away.

“…Sorry, Sorin,” Tamara said, sheepishly. “I feel like this is my fault.” Sorin snorted.

“Yes, Tamara, it’s completely your fault that I was in the hospital for all this time and you have to go back to school tomorrow,” he said, wryly. Veli let his gaze slide over to Tamara--because really, it may _actually be Tamara’s fault_ that Sorin had been in the hospital for as long as he had--but she didn’t stiffen up or anything, just looked sort of awkwardly sympathetic. Veli got the feeling Sorin had neglected to tell her _why_ he so badly wanted to go to this market.

Whatever. More important things to worry about.

Sorin and Tamara spent the next ten minutes saying their goodbyes. They both promised to write, which Veli thought was interesting since neither of them gave a return address or family name, but eh, probably they’d be able to find Tamara at Beetleburg just fine if they needed to, Veli wasn’t worried. Sorin kept up a relatively cheerful face through the whole exchange, apologized for doing the mental equivalent of hog-tying her and throwing her over his shoulder – “Oh god, I’m sorry! I didn’t even think—you’ve never gotten hooked before, it didn’t even occur to me!”—and waited until the door was closed to slump, dejected, onto a couch.

The thing was, Veli couldn’t tell if it was more saying goodbye to Tamara or not being able to go to the market. He raised an eyebrow at Stani, who nodded and slipped out the door after their friendly neighborhood spy, and then walked over to Sorin, reached over and ruffled his hair.

“Hoy.” Sorin looked back at him, eyes so _disappointed_ , and Veli took a moment to bravely resist the urge to, oh, lean over and kiss his face. Wrap him up in a hug and refuse to let go. Something. “Hyu hokay, boss?”

Sorin sighed. “Yeah. Just…” he waved a negligent hand at the door Tamara and Stani had just exited through. “I just…” He sighed again. “I know I can’t trust her, but I liked her anyway. And… well, she really _would_ have helped at the Market, that wasn’t just…” He looked up at Veli, gave a quirk of a smile. “Just me being insecure about being a shitty Spark and an unprepared Heterodyne, same as usual.”

“Hyu iz _not_ a shitty Spark,” Veli said, maybe more heated than he’d meant to. “Und… und iz not like hyu can’t go to de market tomorrow, jah? Und hyu von’t have to vorry so moch about vat hyu can say in front of de schpy becawz ve alreddy know hyu iz de Heterodyne und can fix us. Und now hy can actually assign some guards to go _vit_ hyu instead of improvising like hy vas gonna haff to do. So iz better all around.”

Sorin snorted, then stood up, pulling away from Veli’s hand as he went—Veli hadn’t removed it. Hadn’t noticed. “I actually might try to write down what I was thinking for the rain,” he said, not looking at Veli. “Let me know when… dinner happens, I guess.”

“Kiddo,” Veli started, but Sorin walked into his bedroom and closed the door.

Veli turned to look at Snappy, who’d spent the whole exchange in the corner cheerfully chirping at a broom handle it was probably considering lighting on fire. “Hyu know,” he said to the little clank. “Sometimes hy…” He sighed, cut the thought off before it could go any further, and went to rearrange the damn guard schedules.

* * *

_0_

Clardale was more a village than a town, maybe an hour’s walk from Gladehall and still technically under the jurisdiction of Doctor von Elbe, mostly consisting of the spillover of people who wanted to live near the hospital and under the Doctor’s protection but could not afford a home in the slightly more affluent area. The laws on housing and cleanliness and safety were still rigorously enforced, but the citizens tended to be more transient, and the buildings themselves were constantly being renovated to fit the village’s ever-changing population.

It made Veli nervous. Too many dark corners, sudden noises, overlapping smells, too many ways to simply erase your presence from an area like you had never been. It was the type of place that was just screaming for a stakeout.

Sorin wanted to go, though, so that was that.

“You both need to relax,” Sorin said, walking between Veli and Bosko with his hands in his pockets, eying their hypervigilence with frank bemusement. “I’m getting tense just looking at you two.”

“Hyu promised hyu vould let os do hour jobs,” Veli reminded him, tracking a woman crossing the street and disappearing into a shadowy alley.

“I am,” Sorin insisted. “I just… I keep remembering this lecture about blending in that I got from someone.” He looked up, musing, face twisted into this faux-innocent look Veli was _sure_ he’d picked up from Dario. “I feel like someone spent _months_ going over and over how the best thing to do when you don’t want people to pay attention to you is to act like you’re not concerned—“

“Ve iz two jaegers und a man valking three abreast in a schmall town ve dun come from, boss,” Bosko said before Veli could object that at the time he’d been referring to Sorin’s since-broken habit of tensing up every time they flanked him. Bosko flicked an ear towards a grinding sound coming from a construction area, visibly shrugged it off, and then continued. “Ve iz noticeable ennyvay.”

“Yeah, but…” Sorin sighed and shook his head. “Right, let you do your jobs, sorry. Maybe just stop stalking, at least, you’re making people nervous.”

“Goot,” Veli said shortly, glaring at a guy who’d come to gawk at them from a window. The guy flinched and ducked back into his house. “Maybe dey _schtay avay_ den.” 

Lyubo crested a rooftop, made a quick all-clear signal, and then disappeared again to do another sweep. Sorin sighed, and looked down at his map. “Okay, we need to go down this road for another two streets, and then turn right at the big oak tree, and then we should be able to see the Market.”

“Truck,” Bosko warned, nudging Sorin in the side. Sorin obediently took a step to the right towards Veli, not even looking up from his map. Veli looked over to see the large truck, laden down with old, broken planks and construction debris, carefully move to the other side of the road so as not to hit the civilians. He turned back to Sorin.

“So ve iz about fifteen meenutes avay, den,” he mused. “Iz dere enny vay dat’s faste—“

“ _Truck_!”

Tire squeals filled the air—shouting—driver laying on his horn—Veli didn’t even think. He grabbed Sorin with one hand and _threw_ him off the road and behind him, turned around and braced just as the truck reached them, throwing his hands out to halt the forward momentum—feeling more than seeing Bosko do the same. The truck threw them both back—Veli stumbled, regained his balance, felt the truck stop—the truck’s load shot over the top of them from the momentum in an arc, showering them both with debris, hitting something behind them with a crash—

Sorin shouted.

Veli _whirled_ , already in a crouch to leap—the debris had hit a support beam in the construction area behind him, there were piles of rubble everywhere—where was Sorin _where was_ —

Lyubo landed on the truck’s roof with a _bang_ , leapt over them and hit the ground at a run. Veli made to follow—

“Oh _sweet lightning_ , are you alright,” the driver was saying. “I think my wheel—my brakes failed—I don’t know what happened, this is a new truck—“

Veli’s head snapped around, looked at the back wheel—wooden bolt caught in the rungs, it’d nearly ripped the whole wheel clean off—someone’d shot at the wheel to get the truck to swerve, where—

“ _There_ ,” Bosko growled, and shot away, boosting himself up onto a roof and taking off after a shadow—

Veli turned and boundedafter Lyubo, found him crouching in front of an opening into a cellar, chucking boards and brick aside in a mechanical, grim-faced way.

A few of the boards were bloody. Oh _god_ —

“Status,” he snapped at Lyubo, skidding to a halt and starting to lever crap off the cellar opening alongside him. The door was hanging at an angle from the hinge, half smashed.

“ _Veli_!” Sorin’s voice floated up, and Veli froze, heart skipping a beat. “ _Are you and Bosko okay? Did you get hit? What happened?_ ”

“Boss,” Veli shouted. “Did hyu hit hyu head? Can hyu move?”

“ _Yeah—I mean, no I didn’t hit my head, yes I can move. Are_ you _okay_?” Veli could have cried.

“Ve iz fine,” he called down. “Dun move, Lyubo und hy iz moving de debris!”

“Vat happened,” Lyubo asked, heaving a particularly large beam out of the way. Veli growled.

“Assassin. Bosko vent after it.” The ‘ _We need to get the Heterodyne out of here_ ’ went unsaid.

Veli tossed a final piece of wood aside, shoved some more out of the way to make an opening—there. “Coming down!” He jumped, landed on the packed dirt floor and more debris.

It was a small cellar—his glow reflected off the walls from where he stood, giving everything an eerie green tinge. Sorin was propped up against one of the walls, bleeding a bit from superficial cuts and what looked like it’d be an impressive bruise on his face. He levered himself to his feet when he saw Veli—moving stiff; well, of course, he’d gotten _knocked down a cellar_ —and dashed over to Veli, grabbed his arms and looked him up and down, obviously concerned.

Veli unclenched a little in spite of himself. It didn’t mean anything, Veli was pretty sure Sorin would still check them for paper cuts if he’d gotten impaled on a spike, but it was—he looked okay.

Now just to keep him that way.

“You look okay,” Sorin said. “Where’s Bosko? Is he all right? Is the _driver_ all right? What _happened_?”

“Somevun,” Veli started, “trew a schpike into de vheel ov de transport so it vould sverve und hit os.”

Sorin’s eyes got very wide. “Wha—but—“

“Let’s go back op,” Veli interrupted. “Hy vant os out ov dis damn village. Here,” and he scooped Sorin up—Sorin wrapped his arms and legs around Veli’s neck and waist respectively, entirely by habit at this point—and took two long strides over to the wall. The ladder looked like it had been smashed. Veli shrugged internally and started scaling the wall with his claws. “How did hyu vind op in de cellar?”

“Got knocked over when all that debris came flying,” Sorin grumbled. From this angle, the bruise on his face looked ugly—dark and puffy, and far too close to his temple for Velimir’s comfort. Veli checked his pupils—argh, too dark to tell, damn Sorin for having such dark eyes, anyway. “How do you know it was an assassin?”

“Bosko vent after him,” Veli said shortly. “Hyu said hyu didn’t get hit in de head.”

“…I said I didn’t hit my head,” Sorin said. “I don’t have a concussion, it’s fine, Bosko went after an assassin _alone_?”

“Bosko iz a big schtrong jaeger und can take care ov himself,” Veli snapped. “Ve iz not going after him. Ve iz going back to Gladehall _right now_.” He crested the top of the wall, heaved himself up so Sorin could grab onto the ledge and lever himself onto solid ground, followed him out as Lyubo grabbed their Heterodyne by the shoulders to steady him and began the same slightly frantic once-over that Veli had performed in the cellar.

“Ack, dot looks nasty,” Lyubo said, trying for light as his eyes locked onto the bruise on Sorin’s face and failing pretty spectacularly. His eyes locked onto Sorin’s pupils for a second before skittering away to check the rest of him—okay, no concussion then, good. Veli turned to scan their surroundings again. “Master, Veli iz right, ve need to go avay from here now, ve—“

“No,” Sorin said, voice ringing like a hammer hitting steel. Veli and Lyubo snapped to attention, Veli’s head shooting back to his master almost of its own accord. “Bosko is still chasing the assassin, and I need to check the driver.”

“Boss,” Veli started, and there was a note of pleading in his voice, and he _did not care_. “Ve dun know if odderz iz nearby—“

“We don’t know anything at all,” Sorin said, as he squared his shoulders and started walking back towards the driver, who was staring at the whole thing with eyes wide, like he was watching a train wreck, “except that someone was caught in the crossfire of an attack and Bosko is chasing the assassin who did it. We’re not going to _learn_ anything by running away.”

“ _Master_ ,” Veli begged.

“ _Captain_ ,” Sorin snapped back.

And just like that, Sorin won. Veli closed his eyes tight, took a deep breath, and then turned to Lyubo. “Sveep de area,” he said. “Schtay in line ov sight.”

“Jah,” Lyubo said, looking as helplessly unhappy about this turn of events as Veli felt. He turned and boosted himself up onto a construction beam in one swift movement, crouched there like a gargoyle in shadow for a minute while he adjusted his longsword for ease of access, and then was off along the rooftops, doing a wide circuit of the street, teeth just visible in a snarl. Veli turned and caught up to Sorin in three quick strides.

* * *

“What did you _do_?” Rozalia snapped, storming into the driver’s house with fire in her eyes and Lyubo slinking sheepishly at her heels. Veli, who’d started to lunge when the door banged open, froze where he was and blinked.

From where he was sitting next to the driver on the couch, Sorin did pretty much the same. “Really?” he asked, giving Lyubo a look of combined tired exasperation and betrayal.

“Hy didn’t know who else,” Lyubo whined. “Hyu say get a medical professeeonahl!”

“I meant _in town_.”

“I am _still right here_ ,” Rozalia interrupted, livid. “Move, Sorin.”

“This is Rozalia,” Sorin told the driver as he moved. “She hates me and once worked for a Spark that decided to try burning me to death with lava—“

“Oh, don’t you even start, Mr. I was only in that situation because rules apply to other people—“

“But she’s actually really good at this,” Sorin continued, over top of her, “so you should listen to her.” Rozalia shut up. Sorin looked like that sentence had caused him physical pain, but he didn’t take it back.

If Velimir weren’t more or less expecting an assassin to break through the window at any moment, he’d probably be finding this adorable right now.

“Why is there _another_ jaeger in my house?” Veli’s head snapped almost of its own accord to the kitchen doorway, where the lady of the house was standing, still white as a sheet, holding a plate of food she’d reluctantly gone off to make about half an hour ago to keep her hands busy until a doctor got there. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sorin cringe and turn to her as well, paste back on that “pleasant shopkeeper” look he’d been using less and less frequently these days.

“Sorry, ma’am, this is Rozalia Iliescu. She’s a nurse and the—“

“I asked,” the woman said, lips pinched, “about the jaeger.”

Sorin’s eyes got distinctly more frosty, but he kept on as though he wasn’t affected (Blazh would be so proud. _Veli_ certainly was…). “Oh, this is Lyubo. I mentioned I sent someone to bring a doctor? He’s who I sent. Lyubo, Rozalia, this is Herr Sierzant’s sister, Wiktoria. Frau Sierzant, as I was saying, Rozalia is the chief minion of Doctor von Elbe, she’s here to look Herr Sierzant over so we can make sure he’s alright.”

“My patient being Herr Sierzant, I assume,” Rozalia said wryly, already settled next to the driver and giving his abdomen a critical look. “It’s a pleasure, sir. Do you mind if I apply some pressure to that?” Frau Sierzant immediately forgot about her unwanted guests, hurrying back to her brother’s side with wild, scared eyes to hover unhelpfully. Veli rolled his eyes, turned to Lyubo as he sidled up and Sorin subtly made his escape to join them.

“Hy gots four odders outside,” Lyubo muttered, as Sorin joined them, ostensibly to Sorin though he was mostly facing Veli. “Und hy showed Zbignev und Stani vhere de truck iz, so it schtays vhere it is, Master, hy know hyu iz mad ve hed to leave it, und hy gots Premisl und Blazh to go after Bosko, too, like hyu say.”

“Thanks,” Sorin muttered, and rubbed at his eyes like he was getting a headache. The bruise was bigger now, and darker, a stark blotch on a good quarter of Sorin’s otherwise pretty pale face. “Really? Rozalia?”

Lyubo snickered. Sorin gave him the pinched, secretly-amused-but-don’t-want-to-encourage-you look.

“De odderz outside?” Veli prompted, and Sorin shot him a for-real annoyed look. Veli ignored it.

“Doink a full sveep,” Lyubo answered promptly. “Andrej iz makink pipple ve tink iz civilianz go avay, verra polite-like.”

“Hm,” Veli said, non-commitally. He wanted to go out and get a report directly from the source, but he… it was just…

“Hm,” Rozalia echoed, and for a second Veli thought they’d been speaking too loud and she was replying to Lyubo. When he shot her a look, though, she was prodding at the driver’s bruise, sharp eyes flitting to the man’s face when she moved to a different area to judge his reaction. Sorin’s eyes had immediately shot back to the driver at Rozalia speaking, of course, a worried line appearing on his forehead (he was blaming himself for this, Veli knew. As if it were Sorin’s fault someone was trying to kill him using bystanders…) “This doesn’t look like ecchymosis to me, although I highly recommend you come to the hospital if this continues to darken or if you begin to feel light-headed, sir. As it stands, you don’t seem to have any broken ribs, and none of the areas where you are particularly tender are indicative of a liver or spleen fracture, so I think this is just deep bruising. Lyubo said you where having trouble walking, though, do you mind if I take a look at your legs?”

“It’s his knees,” Frau Sierzant said, as the driver opened his mouth. He gave her a tired, slightly amused look.

“Thank you, sister, I can speak for myself. She’s right, though. I’m sitting like this because if I try to straighten them I nearly pass out. We attempted to put ice on them, but…”

“Your knees? Hm… Well, to examine those I’ll need to take your pants off, sir,” Rozalia said, wryly. “Would you like some assistance with that? Or we can leave the room and let Frau Sierzant help you.”

Brother and sister exchanged a look. “I think I’d prefer Wiktoria to help me remove my pants, Miss Iliescu,” the driver said finally. Rozalia nodded and got up, brusquely.

“That’s fine. Sorin, stop eavesdropping and come join me in the kitchen, I want your take on what happened anyway.”

“I wasn’t—“ Sorin started, puffed up immediately with righteous indignation, and then he visibly bit his tongue. This was good, as he had, in fact, been eavesdropping, and claiming otherwise would have essentially been handing Rozalia a loaded gun in the inevitable upcoming argument. “You were having the conversation five feet from me, Rozalia, it’s not like you were making much of an effort to keep it private! And—and why do you need an update, anyway? You’re a nurse—“

Rozalia rounded on Sorin, eyes flashing, teeth bared like she was ready to bite. “I am the chief minion of the Spark that controls this area,” she snapped, “and in his absence I am able to act as his representative in incidents where _direct sabotage_ results in the injury of one of his citizens. Are you questioning Doctor von Elbe’s authority, Sorin, because—“

“Oh, just _shut up_ ,” Sorin shouted. “Of _course_ I’m not—argh!” He threw his hands into the air and marched into kitchen. “Any day now, _my Lady_.” Rozalia made a sound that could best be described as an enraged hiss, and marched in after him.

Veli and Lyubo looked at each other, and then at the driver who’d nearly run their Master over and his sister, who looked back with mildly traumatized looks on their faces, and then followed Sorin and the area’s reigning Spark’s chief minion into the kitchen without a word.

Sorin and Rozalia, to their credit, had decided to continue their conversation by hissing angrily at each other instead of shouting. They were stood on opposite ends of a table, hands planted and bent over so their faces were barely a foot apart, both of them clearly too angry to realize just how _many_ “should have gotten married” jokes were currently fighting the high alert in Veli’s brain for dominance. He took a moment to consider trying to say them, just to actually get them to cut to the point, but…

There was a window in the kitchen, currently wide open. Veli walked over to it and looked out. Milosh waved from two roofs away.

Behind him, Lyubo apparently decided to pick up his comedic slack. “Hy thot hyu izn’t eenterested in der vimmen, Master,” he said, in that cheerfully stupid tone most jaegers ended up adopting when they were playing the clown. “Only, hyu look like hyu iz gun kees Miz Rozalia, so—“

“ _Lyubo_ ,” Sorin sputtered, and Veli swore you could hear Sorin’s blush _in his voice_ , and even from his place eyeing all the shadows he could see from the window he couldn’t help but smile.

Sorin had nearly died twice today, and Veli had not been able to stop either of them. The smile died on his lips, bile beginning to crawl up his throat again—he forced it down. Forced his mind back on track. No, he couldn’t lose it here, they were still in the line of fire. Later.

“Ennyvay,” Lyubo said, over the sputtering, “ve vos gun tell hyu about de truck, Miz Rozalia?”

Rozalia paused mid-word. Veli turned his head enough to see her blush, clear her throat, square her shoulders. “Ah. Yes, right, that was what I wanted.”

“Vell, hy vos op on de roofs,” Lyubo said, shrugging. “Und den hy go und get Master Sorin, so hy deedn’t even see der assassin.” Veli growled, completely instinctively. Lyubo snorted, short and abrupt—agreed—and then continued. “Hy ken tell hyu vat hy saw, bot hy dunno how much eet helps.”

Sorin sighed, slumped against the kitchen table. “You probably know more than me, I got thrown when the truck swerved, and then I got knocked down a cellar by debris. Go ahead.”

Lyubo nodded, began to talk. Veli turned back to the window and tuned him out.

Milosh came back into view again, swung down onto a signpost and dropped to the pavement. Disappeared into the shadows under the window. Veli turned his attention back to the roofs, strained his eyes to see into the backs of the shadows.

There was room for a person to hide there, and there—that was a blind spot from this window. You couldn’t see half of that roof unless you were physically on it. This house was terrible to secure—lower than the other buildings around it, surrounded by construction and strong smells and loud noises, and only three ways out and none of them easy. Velimir had been in hundreds of battles—thousands, maybe—more dangerous situations, crazier odds, and none of them made him as uneasy as this stupid little shack in the middle of an unfamiliar town surrounded by areas primed for an assassin to stake out. Velimir wanted to go back to the castle, wanted to take Sorin and throw him over a shoulder and _go_.

He wouldn’t get to do that, of course. Sorin had made his decision, and now Veli had to live with it. He gritted his teeth, did a visual sweep of the problem areas again, nodded as Dario swung up onto one of the roofs and waved before disappearing into one of them. Veli rolled his shoulders, forced himself loose.

Rozalia’s voice cut into his train of thought like a knife through paper. “So if I understand,” she said, voice carefully low. “You came to a place you knew very little about when you _knew_ someone was _trying to kill you_ , and then you were surprised when _someone tried to kill you_. Is that about right?”

“…I didn’t know someone was trying to kill me,” Sorin said, stiffly.

“ _Red and bloody fire_ , Sorin, I don’t believe you,” Rozalia snapped. “You didn’t _know_ someone was— _someone nearly killed you less than a month ago_!”

“Stop shouting, you’re embarrassing yourself,” Sorin snapped back. “None of us knew there’d be a repeat performance, and even if we did, what was I supposed to do, sit in the castle and shake?”

“That would certainly be a _start_ ,” Rozalia shouted. “This is _exactly what you do_ , Sorin! You decide that things like _common sense_ and _reasonable caution_ are beneath you, and you go _gallivanting off_ and put everyone around you in danger—“

“—Oh my god, are you playing that card? You, Miz ‘Oh I’m sure my Mistress has a great reason for creating a _bomb that can be felt hundreds of miles away’_ —“

“ _Stop bringing Mistress Raduva into every argument you are losing_ ,” Rozalia shrieked. “You should have _stayed in the castle_!”

“I am not going to _stay in the castle and rot_ because _someone might want to kill me_ ,” Sorin roared. “You have _no idea_ what I was even coming here for, and even without that, _hiding_ my entire life from people who _don’t like me_ means I’m never going to get to do _anything at all_ —“

“There is a difference between letting them win and putting yourself in the line of fire!”

“ _I am always in the line of fire_!”

“ _Then start_ _acting like it_!”

“Are they going to come after us,” Frau Sierzant asked from the doorway.

Veli whirled, in time to see Lyubo do the same thing. Not paying attention to the door, shit, shit. Veli hadn’t even heard her approach, he’d been too caught up in—

“What do you mean,” Sorin asked.

“The men trying to kill you,” the lady said, knuckles white on the doorframe. “The ones who nearly killed my brother to do it. Are they going to come after us now, since he didn’t die and then you brought him home and told us this? Are we in danger now?”

Sorin opened his mouth—to object, probably, to say _no of course not why would they_ —and then he… stopped, and Veli could see the scenarios playing over his face, see the moment he realized…

“They might,” the lady interpreted, and nodded. “Do we have to run, then?”

“…I don’t know,” Sorin said, and he looked—he schooled his features pretty quickly, but not enough, not before Veli caught a glimpse of—

“Oh god,” the woman muttered, and slumped against the door. She looked horrified ( _Sorin looked horrified_ ). “Oh god, we just moved here, we—all our savings went into that damn truck… Jan can’t work if he can’t drive, our truck is—we don’t even…”

“I can fix your truck,” Sorin said. “Free of charge. I’ll do it right now, I can go and—“

“ _No_ ,” the woman said, and shut her eyes tight, took a deep breath. “No, thank you, we don’t need a Spark to fix our truck. We don’t—thank you, sir, for bringing my brother home, and for fetching a doctor, and I—I understand this was—it might be best if you go.”

Sorin looked like she’d punched him in the gut. He nodded, slowly. “All right,” he said. “Here, this is…” he pulled a money pouch out of his pocket, turned and put it on the table. “This is for the truck,” he said, “and… please let Rozalia finish looking over your brother. I’m—I’m sorry for—“

“We don’t need the money,” the woman said.

“Take it anyway,” Sorin said firmly. “It’s not my money they want, I don’t think. I’ll get someone to bring your truck back to you. Veli, Lyubo, we’re going.”

“Sorin—“ Rozalia started, and Veli couldn’t tell what the look on her face meant, really, it—Sorin walked past the woman and out of the room. Lyubo looked at Veli, eyes wide, and then followed. Veli crossed the room and left, too.

* * *

Sorin went back to the truck, because Bosko, Premisl, and Blazh hadn’t come back yet, and because he wanted to check it over and send it back to the Sierzants. He sat there for a long time, staring blankly at the broken wheel and brakes, which had gotten shot out with the same kind of bolt as the wheel had.

Two hours later, Blazh came back, towing Bosko—blind and noseblind from a pepper bomb and snarling in a combination of pain and frustration. “No, Master, vhy iz hyu schtill _here_ ,” he snapped, when Sorin came over. “Iz not safe—“

“Shut up,” Sorin told him, pinched and unhappy. “Let me at least do _this_ , please, I can’t—“ He swallowed whatever he’d been going to say, and didn’t speak again through cleaning out Bosko’s eyes and nose and treating the burns there as best he could.

Premisl came back an hour after that, and reported that the trail had gone cold.

“Okay,” Sorin said, defeated and devastated and tired. “We can go back now.” So they did.

* * *

_Captain Aser was pretty unassuming-looking, as far as jaegers went. He was the standard green color that showed up so frequently, with dark curly hair some generic version of brown and an equally curly beard, which he kept surprisingly well-groomed. He was sprawled on General Khrizhan’s couch when Veli arrived, long, thin legs crossed at the ankle and equally long, thin arms thrown casually over the couch back and armrest, respectively. He looked Veli up and down with eyes that were—Veli couldn’t put his finger on it. Tired? Sad? Serious, anyway, it made Veli nervous. Oh well, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected from the Captain of Bludtharst Heterodyne’s Honor Guard, really…_

_“So hyu iz de new blood dey roped into dis shit position, den?” the Captain asked, quirking Veli a wry, wide smirk that showed his long, thin fangs._

_“Jah,” Veli said, at a bit of a loss._

_“Tough break, brodder. Sit! General Khrizhan iz not here. Hy show op und soddenly efferyvun needs to be somevhere else, iz amazing. Apparently hy iz not de life ov de party hy vunce vos.”_

_Veli chuckled, a bit unsure, but he sat as bid. Aser unfolded and refolded himself so he was resting his arms on his knees, leaning forward towards Veli, hat set at a careless angle that looked three or four seconds from falling off. “So tell me about hyu Heterodyne, den. Dun leave ennyting out.”_

_…Oh. Okay. Veli shrugged and told the story of how he’d met Sorin—which was still one of his favorite stories despite the fact that he’d repeated it something like four hundred times at this point, to be frank. It was a good story, and his audience was generally pretty hungry to hear what he had to say—anything he had to say about their new Heterodyne. Plus, he got to be justifiably smug. Not every day you accidentally snag your Master while sneaking around a crazy lava Spark’s lair, after all!_

_Aser hmmed along and nodded, cracked a few smiles when Veli got to the dirigible—the first part, with the cowering mail people, not the part that came after. Veli toned that part down a little bit, usually. It felt like a betrayal of confidence to… say too much about…_ _(_ please don’t make me _). Veli gave enough information to make sure Aser had the context and then moved on._

_At the end, Aser sat back against the couch, arms crossed speculatively, eyes pointed upwards as he thought. “Vell,” he said. “Hyu iz gon have en eenteresting time, brodder.”_

_Veli blinked. That was… not usually what his listeners’ response was. Actually, some of the jaegers he told this story to were a bit concerned that Sorin sounded sort of tame for a Heterodyne, but Veli was pretty sure that would clear up the moment Sorin had a little more training under his belt and got offended at something, so he wasn’t really worried._

_Still. Nice to be agreed with? Veli grinned cheerfully. “Jah, hy tink so.”_

_Aser quirked that wry smile again. “Hyu iz happy about dat now, bot chust vait until he valks into a firefight vit a brend new veapon dat he’s never tested befur und iz_ hyu _job to get heem beck out in vun piece.” Veli blinked, and then thought about it—Sorin walking blythly onto a battlefield with something new and shiny slung under his arm the way he’d seen so many Heterodynes do, arrows flying everywhere, the opposite Spark getting a bit desperate and clearly trying to cook up something to blast as big a hole in their defenses as possible—and felt himself pale a little, uneasy feeling intensifying. Aser nodded. “Mm… Congratulations, Captain Velimir, hyu get to be de boring fretty jaeger ov dis generation ov Heterodynes. Velcome to Captaining a Guard. De goot news iz hyu get to commandeer ennyvun hyu vant in dat situation to cover heem, so long az dere iz no odder Heterodyne higher den heem on de food chain around, jah? De vun perk!” He grinned, sharp and a little cynical. “Plus, hy iz gon try to shove four Heterodynes’ vorth of Captaining into hyu head in about a month, so et least hyu should know vhere hyu fucked op if he gets dat far.”_

_“…Ah.” Veli said. Aser grinned bigger._

_“Hokay, first lesson den.” Aser stood up, stetching, and walked casually over to Khrizhan’s table, where there were two glasses and what looked like a bottle of the Baron’s good brandy. He stabbed the cork with a claw and pulled it out, casually. “Tree tings hyu ebsolutely need to know about beink a Guard Captain. Vun: hyu now haff vun job, und only vun job, und dat iz de continued life und safety ov de Heterodyne hyu haff been appointed to protect. Dere iz novun more important, und hyu cannot be ordered to do ennyting dat contradicts dat except from de Heterodyne himself, de Heterodyne’s C-ho-G—vhich in dis generation iz hyu so far, so dat’s not so important—or de Generals. Und iz debatable vhether hyu haff to leesten to de Generals.” Aser poured, and then walked back over to the couch. “Two: failure ov dis mission iz_ hyu fault _. Hyu iz in command. De rest ov de Guard follows hyu lead und hyu orders. Hyu dun get to be wrong, becawz failure means hyu Heterodyne iz dead, und depending on de death dere may not be comink beck from dat.” He handed Veli the glass. Veli, eyes wide, accepted it, watched Aser down his own in one gulp._

_“Vat’s de third thing,” he asked._

_“Mm.” Aser put his glass down. “De tird ting? Sorin Heterodyne iz mortal. Dat means hyu haff already failed. Drink op, Captain, dis iz gon be bumpy.”_

_Veli stared at Captain Aser, with his tired eyes and his four tours of duty as a CoG and his wry, sharp, knowing smile, and felt his heart sink straight into his hooves. He drank. Aser grinned._

_“Goot. Now dat hyu iz properly terrified, ve ken_ really _schtart.”_

* * *

Veli wasn’t quite sure how he managed it, but he lasted straight through getting Sorin back to their rooms, and getting someone to look him over for real, and assigning Chestibor to stand at Sorin’s window—Sorin didn’t say a word the entire time, sat quiet and pinched through all of it and then walked straight into his room and waited for Chestibor to come in and then closed the door without even slamming it—

“Be right back,” Veli said, and walked out of the rooms and down the hall, let himself into a different guest suite. Nobody was staying in this one right now—it was smaller than theirs, and the furniture had dust sheets on everything, no personal belongings scattered about. Veli checked the walls, found one that wasn’t load-bearing, and then picked up the couch and _threw it as hard as he could into the stone_.

The wall held—good craftsmanship, really, Veli was impressed. The couch splintered, pieces flying across the room with a resounding crash. Veli’s teeth were bared, he could feel his body _vibrating_ from the growls, deep in his chest, the green he was letting off bouncing off the gray stone ( _the glow bouncing off the cellar walls, so close, the huge, jagged pieces of debris littering the stone floor, Sorin white and bruised and bleeding and how heavy had the piece of debris been that left that bruise on his face, how close—how easy would it have been for him to land wrong, to land on the wrong thing, to hit his head--_ ) Veli snarled, chucked the loveseat into the stone mantle around the fireplace. The stone _splintered_ along with the loveseat, sending up a fine layer of dust. Veli squinted against it as his eyes started to sting, picked up the coffee table—heavy mahogany, nice. It broke into six jagged pieces against the wall.

Sorin could have landed on a piece of wood like that, or could have just hit his head right on the wall and snapped his neck, his spine. Could have had something harder or sharper hit his skull, or had whatever had hit him hit just a little higher, on the temple. Veli hadn’t been _looking where he was throwing him_ , Sorin could have landed on something sharp, something metal, could have been skewered where he stood by the debris. Could have just been shot—they hadn’t _heard the assassin_ , they’d been _looking_ and they hadn’t heard him coming, and then he’d pepper bombed their best tracker and escaped.

Veli wanted to rip someone to shreds, wanted to scream, wanted to taste _blood in his mouth_ and feel bones splintering and—these men were _dead_ , they were _dead_ , only Veli couldn’t find them, couldn’t go looking because Sorin was still here and was still—he—just—

Veli braced and _bounced_ to the light fixture on the ceiling, let it take his weight, ripped it out of its supports and _shattered_ it on the other debris. Glass flew everywhere—Veli turned his head so it wouldn’t get in his eyes, felt it cut his face, his hands, stood there panting in the wreckage of the room. Sank to his knees and stared blindly at the shit-covered carpet.

Sorin had looked devastated, but he hadn’t agreed to be more careful. Veli wasn’t sure he could trust Sorin if he _did_ agree to be more careful, he’d done it before and then he’d waltzed straight into a trap and refused to leave (so convenient, that Tamara reminded Sorin a day before she had to go, on a day when it was _impossible_ to go, so convenient that she hadn’t left an address where they could reach her). Veli only had ten jaegers at his command, was stranded in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people he couldn’t trust against an enemy he couldn’t _find_ and he couldn’t even depend on his Heterodyne (on _Sorin_ ) to _work with him_ to keep himself safe.

What was he supposed to do now?

“Hoy,” Zbignev said behind him. Veli was on his feet in the next second, whirling, a snarl on his lips, tight as a spring. Zbignev stared back, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, loose and _wholly_ unimpressed. “Iz hyu feenished vit der schtupid panic attack, yet? Only, ve haff assassins knocking on der door und no orders, Captain. If iz gun be moch longer, mebbe hyu should chust let me do eet.”

Veli flinched, swallowed down the growl threatening to rattle its way out of his chest. Zbignev was not the probem here. Worse, he was absolutely right.

This was Veli’s command, and Veli’s orders, and if he couldn’t do it he needed to step back for someone who could. This wasn’t… Veli didn’t have room to be proud, here.

Only if he did that, the Guard wouldn’t ever trust him under fire again. He’d be done. He’d have to hand his command over—probably to Zbignev, at this point—and he’d have to go back to Castle Wulfenbach, and Sorin would be out here in danger and Veli would be—

“Hy vill be dere in a minute,” Veli said, as calmly as he could. Zbignev snorted, but shrugged, pushed away from the doorjamb and walked back down the hall.

Veli took a deep breath.

He knew what he had to do, but _damnation_ was Sorin not going to like it.

“Hy vant vun jaeger on effery entrance to dese rooms, permanently,” Veli said as he walked into their rooms again, not bothering with a greeting. Everyone was sitting down, or lounging against the wall, except Bosko, who was lying on the couch. They all snapped to attention when he walked in. “Dot iz all hyu do. Dey could dance a Venetian Valtz in front of hyu, und if dey dun come into de rooms hyu _hold hyu position_. Chestibor iz in Master Sorin’s room, so for now, Milosh iz on dis vindow, Lyubo iz on de servant entrance in hour room, und Andrej iz on de door.”

“Jah,” they said, and went. Milosh walked over to the window and began peering out. Veli turned to the others.

“Three jaegers on Master Sorin enny time he leaves here,” he said. “Ennyvhere. For now, vill be Stani, Premisl, und… Bosko, hyu goot, brodder?”

“Jah,” Bosko said, squinting through eyes still red from pepper to focus on him.

“Bosko, den,” Veli said, nodding. “Blazh und Dario, hyu iz patrolling de Castle. Dario schtarts et de top, Blazh et de bottom, do de whole Castle und svitch.

“Zbignev,” Veli said, turning to his last jaeger.

“Jah, Captain,” Zbignev said back, levelly.

“Hyu do a circuit of de Castle from de outside,” Veli said. “See if hyu can’t catch enny valtzers for os, jah?”

Zbignev grinned. “Jah,” he agreed.

Veli nodded. “Hokay, ve’ll svitch positions down de roster in three hours,” he said, then braced himself and said the last part. “Hy iz gonna vrite to Mistress Tereza.”

Everyone froze. Milosh turned back around to stare.

“…He’s not gonna like dot,” Andrej said, tentatively. Veli gritted his teeth.

“Mine orders iz not from Master Sorin,” he said, as levelly as they could. “Und dey iz to keep him alive.” He looked at them all, one by one, but they looked… grim, but—

They were the jaegermonsters of Sorin Heterodyne’s Honor Guard. They would do what was necessary. And so would Veli. He relaxed. “Move out.”

“Jah,” they said, and they did.

Veli sat to write a letter to the Heterodyne Regent. With any luck, it would be away before Sorin found out.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

_3_

_Sorin Petrescu, c/o Doctor Heinrich von Elbe, Gladehall Castle_

Petrescu,

Hope your time with the Doctor was instructive. I have lined up another instructor for you. Bernard Nosek is a Spark in Cosnebun, which is about four days due south of your current location. He’s agreed to give you a refresher on silversmithing, which is his primary area of expertise, in exchange for your delivering a small object I have commissioned from him to Castle Wulfenbach.

I trust you will find the experience interesting, if not particularly challenging. Nosek is at the top of his field by anyone’s estimation.

_Baron Klaus Wulfenbach_

* * *

“ _Velimir_!” Sorin slammed the door to his rooms open, stormed through, still clutching the helldamned letter in his fist. Veli was on his feet before the door finished hitting the wall, whirling into a fighting stance, shining bright enough to send a glare off the window behind him.

“Vat? Vat’s happened?” he asked, clearly checking Sorin up and down as he spoke. “Hyu hokay?”

“No,” Sorin said, teeth bared. “Sit down.”

Veli blinked, and then his eyes fell on the letter, and his face cleared, eyes going flat. He turned without a word and walked to an armchair, sat down and looked at Sorin expectantly.

Behind him, Blazh broke off from the group that had been following Sorin around all day and went to stand where Veli had been by the window.

Sorin wanted to _scream_.

He didn’t. He stomped over to Veli and slammed the letter down in front of him instead.

“Explain that,” he said, shortly.

“Vat iz it?” Veli asked, blinking at Sorin calmly.

“It’s a letter,” Sorin snapped. “From Baron Wulfenbach. _Read it_.”

“Yaz, Master,” Veli said, and slid the letter out from under Sorin’s hand while he flinched. His voice was still so level, unconcerned, and his eyes were calm as he scanned them over the page, mouthed the words absently. Unsurprised.

“Silversmithing might be fon,” he offered, at the end.

“You’re kidding,” Sorin said. “He’s not sending me there because it’s going to be _fun_ , you aren’t stupid, Velimir! This is a _summons_ , and there’s only one reason why he’d do that, and considering _I_ sure as hell didn’t say anything, there’s only _one person who could have_.” Sorin slammed his hands down on the table again. Veli looked unimpressed. “The Generals or my mother?”

“Hyu momma,” Veli answered, didn’t even flinch.

Sorin did, even knowing the confirmation was coming. “ _You told my mother that someone’s trying to kill me?_ ”

“Jah, Master.”

“ _Why_?” Sorin asked, betrayal clawing up his throat. He thought maybe he was going to be _sick_.

“Hy iz de Captain ov hyu Honor Guard,” Veli said, still so… flat, calm, like he was giving Sorin a _report_ , “und she iz de Heterodyne Regent. Somevun iz trying to keel hyu, iz mine duty to—“

“You didn’t even _talk_ to me first!”

Veli stopped, lips pinched. “Apologies, Master,” he said, and didn’t even try to make it sound sincere.

Sorin shut his eyes, bit his tongue until he tasted blood—( _Hy iz alvays on hyu side_ )—jerked to a full standing position again. “Start the preparations to depart, please, Captain,” he said, not looking at Veli. “We only have three days before our time here is up.”

He walked out of the room without waiting for a response. He doubted Veli would have given him one, anyway.

* * *

_4_

Ludmilla Petrescu, c/o Castle Wulfenbach

Ludy,

I can’t tell if you’re yelling at me for nearly getting killed or for having fun without you. I would say you’re welcome to it, but actually I would prefer you stay Well away from this one.

I am fine. A bit battered at this point, but otherwise perfectly healthy. Do me a favor and mention that to Mother when you speak to her, and Father as well if he knows! I don’t want them to worry any more than they probably already are….

* * *

Theopholous DuMedd, c/o Castle Wulfenbach

Theo,

Good Lord, does everyone on the Castle know about this? Don’t answer that, I already know you’re going to say “yes.” This whole thing is completely Ridiculous, I don’t see why I can’t just take more precautions out here and keep going. They aren’t even escalating! Unless you count trying to get someone to run me over as escalating, but considering their first attempt was Venomous Spiders I think they’re running out of ideas….

* * *

Tereza Petrescu, c/o Castle Wulfenbach

Mother,

~~I~~

~~You don’t~~

~~I really am fine~~

~~I don’t want~~

~~It isn’t~~

All right. I’ll come home.

_Sorin_

* * *

_5_

“Master Sorin,” Andrej called, from his perch on top of the caterpillar car Sorin was currently working under.

“ _What_ ,” Sorin snapped, giving the bolt he was working on a vicious twist. He winced immediately—Andrej hadn’t done anything, it wasn’t fair for Sorin to take his bad humor out on him—started again. “Sorry. Yes?”

“Ah, der Doctor iz comink op der path,” Andrej said, sounding apologetic. “Und he haz Miz Rozalia vit heem, Hy dunno if hyu vant to run or sumting…”

Sorin slumped on the rolling platform he was laying on and sighed. “No,” he said, wiping some sweat off his face and rolling himself back out. “It’s fine. Thanks for the warning, Andrej.”

Premisl snorted, even as he offered a hand to help Sorin lever himself up. Sorin accepted, let the jaeger pull him to his feet, picked up the rag he’d left in easy reach to wipe off his hands. “Does it look like something’s wrong?” he asked.

“Naw, dey iz chust sorta schtrollink,” Andrej said, tilting the brim of his hat out to squint at them. Premisl snorted, eyes sliding back to the side of the caterpillar he’d been watching while Sorin worked on their transport.

“Iz ve suspicious ov der Doctor?” Lyubo asked, from the far side. “Hy ken’t remember.”

Sorin forced his jaw to relax from its sudden clench. “No,” he said, maybe a little too short, and walked around to the front of the clank to greet his visitors.

“He doesn’t like assassins, remember,” Andrej whispered, loud enough for Sorin, Premisl, and probably most of the surrounding road to hear him. “He gots dot Hyppoh-crahteec Oath ting. Iz vhy all der criminalz is test sobjects.”

“Oh, yaz, hy remember dot!”

“Shhh!” Premisl hissed. Sorin rolled his eyes.

“Sorin, lad,” Doctor von Elbe called, voice grating like a saw on stone as always. “Covered in engine grease again already, I see!”

Sorin smiled in spite of himself. “Absolutely,” he said, as the Doctor and Rozalia reached him. “I bathe in the stuff when I’m not studying medicine, didn’t I mention?” Doctor von Elbe laughed, reached up and swiped at Sorin’s head, playfully. Sorin ducked, grinning wider now.

“I won’t miss your cheek,” von Elbe lied blatantly to Sorin’s face. “I have more than enough of that with this one here.” He tossed his head at Rozalia, who snickered.

“They raise them salty in Vulkanburg,” she demurred.

“I think they raise them _catty_ in Vulkanburg,” von Elbe griped, “but that may just be a matter of definition, I don’t know, I’m a doctor not a rhetorist.”

Sorin grinned for real, and let himself get dragged into a silly conversation about the nature of the Spark and its tendency to create very verbose people. He was going to miss von Elbe. He didn’t often get very good teachers, really, but von Elbe had been. Better, he’d openly and honestly given a damn about his people and his minions and his students the entire time, had been respectful to the jaegers and concerned about Sorin’s health and territorial of his town the way only a Spark could be.

There was a reason, Sorin suspected, that the assassins had waited until Sorin had _left_ town to try again, hadn’t done more than, if Chestibor’s low, frustrated growling the other evening had been any indication, stood just out of range in an attempt to draw Sorin’s guards away, to get him alone. (Sorin had asked Chestibor what he was looking at. He’d very cryptically answered with “A dead man valtzing,” and then refused to say anything else.) That reason was the unassuming man standing in front of him, hands in his pockets and enigmatic smile on his face, and his seeming legions of willing militia and the very clean, comfortable cells in his dungeon, where Sorin was told prisoners often lived long healthy lives as test subjects for the advancement of medicine.

And here Sorin was, armoring his brakes and adding extra insulation to his transport cars in order to drive away tomorrow as safely as possible. To go back to Castle Wulfenbach, where he was sure the Baron would find _plenty_ for the Heterodyne heir to do for however long it took to find his assailants.

Sorin felt his tentative good mood die again, hmm’d and smiled through the rest of the conversation. Von Elbe gave him a sharp, too-knowing look, but he didn’t push.

“Well, lad, I’ll let you get back to your preparations,” he said at last. “Truth be told, we just came by to give you this.” He turned and raised an eyebrow at Rozalia, who slung the pack she’d been carrying off her shoulder without a word and opened it up, pulled out—

“That,” Sorin said, “is the biggest medical kit I have ever seen.”

“Hmph,” von Elbe said. “It’ll do, I suppose. I know for certain you can use everything inside it, at any rate, so we’ll just have to hope you don’t let it leak out your ears from all the engine grease. Please note, there is _no_ vodka in the kit.”

“Aw,” Premisl whined, and was shushed immediately by the other two jaegers.

“Don’t ‘aw’ me,” von Elbe called back. “I can’t believe you let him wander around the Wastelands with a medical kit consisting of bandages and vodka. _Bandages and vodka_ , I ask you…” He turned back to Sorin, winked at him. “All right, lad, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I don’t know if I’ll see you tomorrow morning, so if I don’t, good riddance, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And keep in touch, will you, Rozalia will miss you otherwise.”

“Ha,” Sorin said. “Sure, absolutely.”

Von Elbe turned, waving, and began navigating his way back down the path far faster than his knobby knees and cane would indicate he should be able to. He started whistling part of the way down, let himself get drawn off the road by someone summoning him, and was gone.

Rozalia stayed, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. Sorin blinked, stared at her.

“Yeah?”

Rozalia gave him a look that spoke vividly of long-suffering exasperation, and then sighed. “I wanted to apologize,” she said, like every word was causing her pain. “For…” She gestured, vaguely, up the road. It took Sorin a minute to figure out she must have meant the driver’s house.

“Oh!” Huh. “Yeah,” he said again. “I… shouldn’t have shouted at you.” He clenched his teeth, debating if he really had to—yeah, he probably did. “You were right,” he said, shrugging and looking away. “I mean, obviously, considering…”

“So were you,” Rozalia said. “I mean, I still think you go _looking_ for trouble, but…” She sighed. “I acknowledge that walking out your door does not qualify.”

“Heh,” Sorin said. “That’s not what I was doing. I mean, I wasn’t _looking for trouble_ either, but…” Veli had told him it was a bad idea. He’d caved, in the end, but he’d said it was a bad idea, and he’d been right. Sorin was _really angry_ at Veli right now, but since he was already giving credit where it was due…

“Mm,” Rozalia said. They stood there awkwardly for a minute, looking studiously at the road—so interesting, what fine craftsmanship, it was like it was made out of one continuous stone even—and then Rozalia straightened up all at once, threw the pack onto her shoulder. “Well,” she said. “Try not to die out there, okay?”

“Yeah, like my Guard isn’t doing everything physically possible to wrap me in cotton wool,” Sorin griped. “I’ll be fine.”

“Hmph.” Rozalia gave him a haughty look, turned to walk away. “I thought you were a Spark,” she called. “Since when does what’s physically possible have anything to do with it?”

* * *

_6_

“Whose bright idea was it to go through this area, again,” Sorin asked, reaching over blindly to roll down the window just enough to let some air into the cabin of the caterpillar. A huge fly-thing with blue wings immediately flew in and tried to land on his face. Again. “Argh!”

Stani’s hand shot out, closing on the fly thing with a _crunch_. “Gotcha,” she crowed, and popped the gross thing into her mouth, chewing contentedly. “Hm… needs salt.”

“I hate you,” Sorin told her, conversationally, as he focused all his attention on the road in front of him instead of on the squelchy chewing noises Stani was making. “On the plus side, I am no longer hungry.”

“Iz not mine fault hyu keep bringing os through svamps,” Stani said, licking her fingers clean and then rolling down her window enough to stick her hand out to catch another one. “Iz Sommer! All der bogz iz hatched und tryink to make leedle bogz befur deir boggy livez iz over.”

“There’s no other way to get to this stupid town from Gladehall,” Sorin griped. “At least, not if we use a road. Also I thought we’d all agreed never to bring the Little Swamp up ever again, you are in direct violation of a solemn vow we all took, I hope you feel terrible.”

“ _Hy_ did not bring eet op,” Stani said contentedly. “Hyu deed, though. For shame. Hyu vant vun ov dese? Dey dun taste poisonous.”

“All yours,” Sorin assured her. “Eat as many as you want, I’ll leave the window cracked as long as I can be assured none will fly into my eyes.”

“Sold. Iz _hot_ here!”

“Mm. Enjoy it while you can,” Sorin griped. “At least we get real sun down here.”

“Mm? Ho, hyu mean Kestle Wulfenbach.” Stani shrugged. “Eh, dey haff dose son lamps, though, iz not so bad.”

“Mm,” Sorin said noncommittally. Stani eyed him under the brim of her hat as she stuck another bug into her mouth and chewed. “What?”

Stani shrugged. “Iz only until ve keel de assassins,” she said around her mouthful. She swallowed, then continued. “Und vould only be for a really leedle bit if hyu chust took care ov dem hyuself befur ve got dere! Bot hyu dun vant to, so ve go to Kestle Wulfenbach instead.”

“Wait,” Sorin said, turning his head so he could look at her straight on and still watch the road. “What?”

“Vell, hyu iz not doink ennyting about dem,” Stani said, in a tone that implied she thought she was being perfectly reasonable.

“What am I supposed to do about a group of assassins gunning for me?” Sorin asked. “No, seriously, what could I possibly do that wouldn’t make the situation worse?”

“Hy dunno, _hyu_ iz de Heterodyne,” Stani pointed out, crossing her arms. “Hy iz chust saying—oh, hold schtill, dere iz vun in hyu hair.”

Sorin froze and let Stani pick the bug out of his hair, pop it into her mouth like a sweet. “Thanks,” he said grudgingly, turning back to the road again. “I’m feeling very ganged up on these days, by the way.”

“Nah, Master, ve iz chust trying to do our jobs.”

“I’m letting you do your jobs!”

“Hyu iz being better about it,” Stani agreed, patting Sorin lightly on the shoulder.

“Also, I can’t believe I’m being lectured by a jaeger about stealing a fight. Shouldn’t you be glad I’m not doing anything or something? More for you guys!”

“Ha!” Stani grinned. “Vell, ve vould do eet, except ve ken’t guard hyu in schtrange places like Gladehall und Cosnebun und hunt der vermin both. Dere iz too few ov os!”

Sorin paused. “Too few of you?”

“Jah, ve iz preddy undermanned for dis type ov ting,” Stani said easily, sticking her hand out the window again. “Chust not enough bodies on der ground, or mebbe der wrong mix of skills, hy dunno. Dis schoff iz not mine ting, hy iz chust a fighter. Hyu sure hyu dun vant enny ov dese, Master?”

“…No, thanks,” Sorin said. He contemplated the road for a minute, turning that over in his head—it hadn’t actually occurred to him to consider their squad small, there had always seemed to be jaegers everywhere all the time—and then a bug suicided through the window at his face, making a valiant effort to land right on his eyeball.

“Awgh!”

“Oops, sorry!”

“That’s it, close the windows again, I’d rather fry.”

“Aw…”

* * *

_It took about two weeks for Veli to get what he thought was a pretty good Guard together, which meant he didn’t actually end up talking to the Baron about who was no longer under Wulfenbach’s command until pretty late in the game. It should have been easy, really. The Baron had thousands of troops, technically had not lost any jaegersquads, and for that matter probably had never met any of the members of Sorin’s new Guard personally. Veli was anticipating a distracted yes-good and to never have to worry about it again._

_He was horribly, horribly wrong._

_“Andrej iz a Private vot vas assigned to de Vest flank ov de guard on de Balkan Lords,” he said, finally reaching the end of the list. “He iz… hy dunno, very quiet. Goot fighter, bot dat iz not needed dere right now, und ennyvay dere iz tree jaegers dere who ken replace him.”_

_“Hm.” The Baron pulled out a list—how did he have lists of_ every single jaegersquad in the field _at his fingertips right now, how was that_ possible _—and perused it, lips pursed. “Mm, yes, I see him here. He was slotted for a round of guard duty on the prisoners here next month. Would I be able to use him for that, or will I have to find a replacement?”_

 _“Ve ken… probably vork someting out for dat,” Veli said, thinking longingly of the door that was_ just behind him _. He was fast, if he ran Klaus would probably not be able to catch him._

_“Excellent,” the Baron said, and set aside the list. “Who’s next?”_

_“Dat’s it!” Veli said cheerfully. The Baron frowned. Damn it…_

_“Only eleven jaegers? I was informed I’d be losing something close to thirty.”_

_“Some guards iz dat big,” Veli explained, sighing. “Not dis vun.”_

_“Oh?”_

_“No.”_

_The Baron raised an eyebrow. “Considering I have some stake in keeping your new Heterodyne alive as well, I think perhaps you can be a bit more open about this with me, Captain. Why not?”_

_Veli internally cringed at the title—ugh, never going to get used to that—and then rolled his shoulders, shrugging. “Dun need more,” he said. The Baron rolled his eyes._

_“If you’re willing to take my advice, Captain, I’d add a few more men to your command. If nothing else, you_ have _to understand that part of the reason an Honor Guard exists is to_ look impressive _, and ten jaegers—“_

_“Eleven,” Veli said, getting a little annoyed now, “und dat iz enough. More vould be too moch for him.”_

_“Oh? For Petrescu?” And now the Baron looked interested. Damn. “You don’t think he’d be comfortable with a bigger guard?”_

I don’t think he’s comfortable with any of this at all _, Veli didn’t say. He shrugged again. “Hy can alvays add more later,” he said instead. “Right now, ve iz gon haff to learn each odder, und Master Sorin iz gonna haff to learn os, und Schparky tings, und politicks tings, und he does not need to do all dat und haff tventy jaegers trailing along behind him all de time. Eleven iz fine.”_

_“You don’t have any long range fighters,” the Baron pointed out. “Or any jaegers, apart from yourself, of course, who are ranked higher than Corporal. Do you even have a clear second in command?”_

_“Iz Zbignev,” Veli said, definitely annoyed at this point. “Und de officer ting iz not important vit a schmall Guard.”_ And it’s none of your business _, he added silently. What was this, anyway? Twenty questions?_

 _“Hm…” Klaus looked at him for another few minutes, and then shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m not sure why I am attempting to talk you out of it, to be frank, I actually get to keep more of my men this way.”_ Sorin’s men _, Veli thought, and bit his tongue again. Not the time for semantics. “If that’s all, Captain?”_

_“Jah,” Veli said._

_“Good. I’ll be in touch about clearing out your new guardsmen’s schedules. Thank you for your time.”_

_Veli left the room not sure if he’d won, or lost, or if there had even been an argument at all, but feeling uneasy anyway. No going back now…_

* * *

_0_

“Hy tink ve mebbe passed it,” Milosh said for the twenty thousandth time.

“There is no way we passed it,” Sorin insisted, also for the twenty thousandth time. “The map says it’s on the road, we would have seen it. Did you see an inn at any point today?”

“Hy saw vun about six hours ago,” Milosh offered.

“I saw that one, too. That wasn’t it. It’s supposed to be around here!”

“Mebbe der map iz wrong und it vos earlier on de road den it seyz?”

“It was called something completely different, Milosh, and incidentally it is _also on the map_.”

“Mebbe iz not on der road, den, mebbe iz a bit beck und ve passed it.”

“Are you even looking for the inn, or are you just arguing with me,” Sorin growled.

“Hy iz arguing vit hyu,” Milosh returned immediately, without shame. “Iz getting dark und ve should den op if ve iz gonna.”

“It’s barely twilight,” Sorin insisted. “And the inn has to be around here somewhere.” Milosh rolled his eyes extensively, and settled back into his seat with a shrug.

“Hy really tink ve passed it,” he said, maybe a minute later.

“Milosh!”

“Vot?” Milosh asked, and that was the fakest innocent look Sorin had _ever seen_ , god, why were all his Guard members _assholes_? Sorin forced the corners of his mouth into a straight, firm line. Smiling would encourage him.

“You know what, you jerk. Stop acting like a bored child and help me look for the inn, if you’re so impatient to stop for the night!”

“Hy iz hungry und hyu von’t let me open der vindow,” Milosh complained. “Hyu let _Stani_ open der vindow…”

“Suck it up, you big baby,” Sorin returned, giving in and grinning.

“Hmph.” Milosh crossed his arms and pouted (completely ineffectually). “Hyu iz cruel und playink favorites.”

That sounded maybe a little honest, actually. Sorin frowned. “Oh come on,” he said. “I am not, I made Stani close the window too! You—“ He checked Milosh out of the corner of his eye. The jaeger was smirking. “—are _such an asshole_.” Milosh laughed. Sorin huffed. “That’s it, we’re not stopping, just for that. You are going to be stuck in here until we hit an inn. I’m not even going to stop if you need to pee!”

“Dot’s hokay,” Milosh said contentedly. “Hy tink iz eidder dot or camp out here, und ve ken get further down der road dis vay. Iz chust iffen ve is schtopping ve should schtop soon.”

Sorin sighed. Milosh was actually right. It _was_ getting dark, and whether they’d passed the inn or it was further down the road, Sorin wouldn’t be able to see it soon without turning on the lights. And turning on the lights would mean heating up the engine behind them, and it was already way too hot as it was! Blah. Sorin resolved to figure out a better cooling system for the cabin as soon as he had a little time to do it. It had always seemed like an unnecessary luxury when he was at liberty to just _open the window_ to get fresh air, but the dive-bombing bugs in this particular swamp had proven him absolutely wrong.

“I bet you’re just trying to get me to turn on the lights so we have to open a window,” Sorin griped. “So you can eat the bugs.”

“Oh no, mine evil plan, discovered,” Milosh deadpanned, clearly settling into the seat for the long haul. “Hy tink vun ov de odderz iz gonna come op in a few meenutes to hear vot ve iz gonna do, Master, iz ve schtopping or vot?”

Sorin sighed. Okay, it probably wasn’t worth pushing forward in the dark. On the other hand, the less time stuck out with the bugs, the better. Hrm... He turned his head, opened his mouth to say they’d keep going until they needed to turn the lights on, then find a place to stop for the night.

The object moving at speed at the windshield took them both by surprise. Sorin ducked on instinct, flinching as the windshield cracked inward, shooting glass over the dashboard and into the cabin. Milosh made a noise like a grunt getting cut off, and Sorin had enough time to look up as he automatically corrected their direction, to see the break in the windshield was right in front of the passenger seat, to follow the hole to the knife in Milosh’s throat, his hand on the hilt, his eyes just starting to open in surprise—

Something significantly bigger than a knife flew at the windshield, shattering it completely. Sorin flinched his eyes closed on reflex, but didn’t—couldn’t—turn his face away from his dying jaeger. He felt the glass impact his face, felt it start to bleed—felt something else, something _cold_ , touch his throat, and when he opened his eyes again there was a man between him and Milosh’s body.

He was older, late forties, grinning wide enough Sorin could see the gaps in his teeth—like they’d been knocked out, not from rot, Sorin noticed absently, as the world pulled in, sharpened to hard, straight lines and bright, flat colors. Built like he worked for a living, two more knives in his belt and the hilt of another poking out of his boot. “Pull over, madboy,” he growled directly into Sorin’s face, the smell of sour tobacco hitting him dead in the nose.

Like hell.

Sorin mentally backed up, assessed that instinct. An order to pull over—the assassin didn’t want to _jump_ —he’d be throwing himself out of the still-moving caterpillar, an uncontrolled moving transport powered by lava—chances of survival were pretty slim. He’d wait until the caterpillar was stopped before slitting Sorin’s throat—overconfident, egotistical, he was up against a Spark in that Spark’s creation, and he’d given Sorin _time_.

He’d put a knife in Milosh’s throat right in front of Sorin, and then given him time.

He’d have been better off jumping.

The trees along the path were old—tall and thick, night already come underneath them; probably how this asshole had managed to track them without anyone noticing. Sorin could ram one of the trees, maybe—he had a seatbelt on and the assassin obviously didn’t, and Milosh was (silent, still, air tainted with the smell of blood) already dead—but it might disturb the lava engine behind them, might hit the other cars—no.

What was in the cabin he could use? Glass—that was everywhere, shining like daggers in the twilight—too brittle, couldn’t guarantee he’d find a piece big enough.  Sorin was wearing his tool belt—hammers, wrenches, tongs, and his little spot welder, the one he’d modified from the molten steel guns he’d thought up about two and a half years ago in Blecherville. Those would work, but the assassin would notice his movement, probably would slit Sorin’s throat before he had a chance to reach them. Sorin needed time, just a second, just long enough to reach—

He could come to a dead stop, but the assassin might be anticipating that.

Sorin looked directly at the other man, feeling his teeth bare, feeling the madness place rolling over him like the tide, pulling him down.

There was something the assassin definitely wouldn’t be expecting, but Sorin had never tested it—hadn’t been able to think of a good reason to use it, honestly, it was just something kind of cool and bug-related he’d thought would be a nice challenge…

He’d built the casing to hold up to it, though, at least for a bit. He thought. Probably.

Milosh was dead—killed first because this _asshole_ thought it’d be easier to get to Sorin without him there.

Sorin let himself smile at the assassin, and pulled the lever to roll the caterpillar up like a pill bug.

The engine nose tilteddown and under immediately, the rest of the body curling up and around, rolling the whole length of the transport up in a tight ball around the engine. The assassin’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, his hands flying out to brace on the dashboard and the underside of the roof—good. He’d stay right where he was, of course, this was designed to encase the engine in the rest of the caterpillar body, to protect the driver and their power source from cracking open on the road—the cabin _crunched_ around them, but held.

Sorin let go of the controls as the caterpillar completed its first full rotation—no way to steer, had to move fast, faster than that, if they ended up off the road they’d ram into a tree or go over too uneven ground and tip—hands diving into his pouch, grabbed the spot welder out. The caterpillar’s casing _screamed_ under the weight, the sound of overstressed metal filling the air—Sorin grabbed the lever and pushed it back, and the caterpillar unfolded again, straightening out before landing back on the ground with a _bang_ , bouncing and nearly tipping over before the inner weights restabilized and the transport rebalanced on the road. Sorin gave himself permission to hope in passing that the others had had time to brace. He grabbed the wheel with one hand, shoved the spot welder into the assassin’s _face_ —

A knife tip shot out the man’s neck. He gurgled and slumped over, tipping out the broken dashboard and rolling down the front. The caterpillar rolled over him with a _crunch_.

Sorin stared at Milosh, at his miraculously _alive_ jaeger, one hand pressed grimly to his neck, blood pouring out through his fingers and all down his front, coating the seat behind him in dark red. His other hand was still out from where he’d driven the knife straight through the assassin’s spine, killing him instantly. Milosh blinked, quirked Sorin a smile, and then _slooooowly_ slumped over onto the door, a strange, wheezy gurgle making its way out of this throat.

Sorin hit the emergency breaks on the caterpillar so fast they skipped over once before ramming themselves into the road, jerking him forward against the seatbelt and probably giving him whiplash.

Something solid landed on the roof as the transport settled to a full stop. Premisl landed on the nose of the caterpillar a second later, was through the windshield in half a breath. “Gott’s leedle feesh in _trowsers_ ,” he exclaimed, eyes getting wide as dinner plates as he took in the scene.

“ _Help me_ ,” Sorin snapped, ripping his and then then Milosh’s seatbelts off and reaching over Milosh to open his door. Premisl swung down and caught Milosh as Sorin pushed him out, lowered him to the ground. “Put pressure on his neck, we need to stop the bleeding—“

The door to the engine room slammed open behind Sorin, and Dario dived through. “ _Master_.”

“I’m fine,” Sorin snapped, levering himself onto Milosh’s seat so he could drop down next to Milosh. “He got Milosh in the neck. Find my med kit!”

“He—“ Dario said, and then Sorin had dropped out of the car and hit the ground on his knees next to Milosh. Blood was still spurting out from between Milosh and Premisl’s fingers. Milosh heaved, shoved Premisl away to turn over, coughed up red—the cough caused another spurt of blood, this one uncontrolled. Milosh clapped a hand to his neck again, still coughing.

Von Elbe hadn’t told Sorin what to do with a slit throat. It was something he’d never get the chance to fix on himself, and the good doctor hadn’t shown Sorin anything he thought the jaegers wouldn’t let Sorin do.

Dario slammed through the door and landed next to Sorin with the med kit. “Don’t hyu dare, hyu beeg idiot,” he muttered. Milosh choked, swiped with his free hand at the blood coming out his mouth and nose. It smeared, stark against his already way too pale blue skin. That was blood in his lungs--

“Oh god.” Sorin put his hands over his eyes—his face stung, oh right, the glass—scrubbed down. “Okay. Artery and lungs. As long as they’re not damaged lungs handle themselves, deal with the source first.”

He lunged for the medical kit, began to rifle through it. Breathed out on a hum. The world fell away.

Needed to sew up the artery and keep pressure on the rest—would the coughing be too violent? Might rip open, shit. Needed to reinforce somehow… Von Elbe had a glue in here for particularly deep cuts. Faster, and theoretically easier to reapply if Milosh ripped it open again coughing, and it was designed to dissolve as a wound closed. Not for arteries—not for internal injuries at all—and the way jaegers healed it may not even hold, but there was no time, Sorin didn’t have anything else...

“Hold him down, I need to close the bleed before we let him cough out the blood,” Sorin ordered, grabbing the glue and a needle and thread and a scalpel, turning back to his patient. “Someone sit on his chest and someone else hold his head.” Needed to disinfect—no, wait, jaegers. If there was still an avenue for blood to reach the area, infection wouldn’t be an issue. He knee-crawled over to Milosh’s head, brushed a bug out of the blood around the incision. “Milosh, you are a miracle of science and I cannot believe you are still alive. If you force me to experiment with field revival I will do it just to kill you again myself.” Milosh snorted, coughed again—weaker, god, how much time did Sorin have, how much blood could Milosh lose before—Dario’s hands landed on Milosh’s head, held it down. Milosh sputtered—presumably as grass got in his mouth. Sorin ripped the glue bottle open. “Turn his head to the right a little—do we have any _light_?”

“Here,” Bosko’s voice said behind him, and light shown over Sorin’s shoulder.

The cut wasn’t actually that wide, barely an inch across, but straight through Milosh’s neck. Sorin cringed, used the scalpel to open the incision a little wider, pushed the skin and sinew apart with his fingers—blood spurted, he wiped it away quickly with his sleeve, no time for anything else, how much more time—tweezers! He’d forgotten tweezers. Oh well improvise. He grabbed a pair of tongs from his tool belt.

Milosh made a wheezy sound that would probably be a cry of pain if his vocal chords were working. Sorin cringed, peered in.

“I need something to clean this out, there’s too much blood,” he snapped. “Who has water?”

A water flask appeared, water was poured into the wound. Milosh made the wheezy sound again and thrashed. “Shhhh,” Sorin said, moving flesh aside a little to locate the artery—“Almost there, one more second…”

The cut was pretty small, honestly. Barely a nick, and the wound was already filling with more blood. Sorin slathered glue on, held the incision open long enough for the glue to set, then slathered more glue onto the incision in the front, lifted Milosh’s head to get the back on the other side of his neck. “Okay, bandages,” he said, and grabbed the bandages that were thrust at him, wrapped a loop around Milosh’s neck—not too tight, he didn’t want to strangle him, just hold everything where it was. They went on almost clean—the glue was working, good. Sorin just hoped it held—and that he’d be able to cut through it again if Milosh’s coughing ripped the artery back open. He dabbed a little glue under the edges of the bandage, just for good measure. Milosh’s shoulders shook, trying to cough some more and barely having the energy.

The whole thing felt almost anticlimactic. Sorin hoped to _god_ he wasn’t too late. Jaegers could go for days without a full air supply—Sorin had heard stories of jaegerkin getting cornered and lynched by angry mobs and cutting themselves down again once everything had settled—but after losing so much blood so quickly… “Alright,” he said, slumping. “Now we wait for him to heal. Let’s get his feet elevated, and…” He looked around. All ten of the others were clustered around, some with still visible bruises from the roll—Dario at Milosh’s head and Chestibor at his feet, Bosko holding the lamp and Premisl with the water bottle. Andrej was on top of the caterpillar, checking their surroundings and shooting looks at the proceedings every few seconds, and Stani and Blazh were slipping in and out of sight from where Sorin was sitting, checking in and then vanishing again to do a perimeter sweep.

Lyubo, Veli, and Zbignev were crouched around the outside of the group, forming a triangle with Sorin in the middle.

Any one of them could have been sitting next to Sorin when that knife came through. If it had been a millimeter higher or lower or to the left or right, Milosh would probably already be dead.

“This,” Sorin said aloud, and it came out almost casual, almost speculative, completely at odds with the bloody rage boiling through him, burning the world to stark, bright lines, sharp enough to cut. “This is not going to happen again.” He stood up, looked down at himself. His shirt was saturated in blood, his arms covered up to the elbows. He pulled it off, used the slightly cleaner inside to do a quick swipe of his hands and face—stung, hrm, he needed to do something about the glass eventually, it was going to get infected—added it on top of the med kit Chestibor had shoved under Milosh’s feet. Milosh was turned on his side, now, still coughing blood up weakly. Nothing was spurting out of the bandages, so Sorin figured the glue must be holding.

He turned to Dario. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, I’m going to check out the damage to the caterpillar. Call if he rips that open again.”

“Jah, Master,” Dario said, settling carefully into the grass by Milosh’s head, trying on a cheerful grin. “Dun vorry, der bleeding iz already schlower!”

“Mm,” Sorin said. “Call me, I’m serious.” He turned… his triangle of jaegers were on their feet already, presumably to move with him. He didn’t comment, turned away. “Stani, Blazh,” he called, striding away and down the caterpillar—full circuit, first. He wanted to see how the casing held up, that was a good trick to keep in reserve, but he’d clearly need to make adjustments. “You too, Andrej.” Stani and Blazh fell into place around him, Andrej turning and picking his way back over the roof of the transport to follow. “What’s there to see?” Sorin asked.

“Notting,” Stani said, flatly. “Dere’s a schmear on der road about seex meters behind os, bot dot’s not all dot useful.”

“Novun schtock around, probably, Master,” Andrej said, as Sorin nodded and paused to check the wheel suspension under the third car—completely bent, that’d be first. “Der caterpillar vos verra loud vit der rolling, dey gots to know sumting vent vrong und left vhen it vos schtill masking eet.”

“Or he followed os alone,” Blazh offered. “Eidder vay, vos a preddy fest transport to go off-road und keep op vit os.”

“Tracks in the swamp?” Sorin asked, standing up and walking forward to check the engine, fingering some of the dents on the way—he could bang those out, easy. Would need to reinforce when he had a few days....

“None een der first tventy meters from dis position,” Blazh said promptly. “Mebbe closer to vhere der attack happened—“

“Right,” Sorin said, and stopped next to the engine. “I want someone to go check that. If he came alone, the transport will still be there, and there might be something useful in it. If not, there’ll be tracks we can follow.

“I’m going to do some repairs—should take maybe tonight, possibly into tomorrow— and move Milosh inside, and clean up a little, and when I’m done I want a direction we can go in.”

“Ve is gonna follow?” Zbignev cut in. He sounded surprised.

Sorin looked around at the six jaegers around him, over at Bosko and Premisl, who’d taken up perimeter when Sorin called Stani and Blazh off, at Chestibor and Dario by Milosh, looking at him with… Sorin wasn’t sure what that look was, actually.

At Veli, who’d paused what looked like mid-sentence to focus on Sorin.

Veli had been saying for weeks that Sorin needed to stop acting like the attacks weren’t happening, that he was making it difficult for the Guard to protect him. Stani had out and out said she thought Sorin didn’t _want_ to deal with the problem; if he had, he would have done something already, right? He…

Sorin had let his Guard down a bit, probably, by not stepping up when he should have.

He hadn’t… it hadn’t occurred to him that he was _supposed to_. It probably should have.

It didn’t matter. “I am sick to death,” Sorin said, feeling the rage beating at the back of his throat like a heartbeat, “of these assholes getting away with this. Not a single thing they’ve done has only affected me, did you notice? I’m done. Let’s see how they deal with a mark that bites back.”

Stani grinned, teeth shining in the lamplight in the dark, and gave him a knowing look as the others whooped. “Gon do sumting about it after all, den, Heterodyne?” she muttered.

“Of course,” Sorin replied, and grinned back at her. “You all should have just said earlier that you were waiting, I’m new at this, remember? Do me a favor and get me the rolling platform, I have to check the engine.”

“Jah, Master,” she said, and slipped off. Sorin turned back to the engine. There was, apparently, work to do.

* * *

_1_

The tracks Blazh found were wide and deep—too heavy to be a one-person transport, and from the depth it looked like they’d left in a hurry. Sorin gritted his teeth and threw himself into repairs, worked non-stop through the night and half the morning and still wasn’t able to start pursuit until midday the next day. It didn’t matter, he told himself, that they were fast, or that they had a head start; Sorin’s transport was faster. They would catch up.

He was right.

“Hoo, dere hyu iz,” Lyubo crowed, crouched on the roof at the top of the engine, fingers clutching the lip with a leather-gloved hand as he squinted out. “Master, hy gots eyez on der truck—haha, hy tink dey iz schtuck. Hallooooooooooooo!”

“Halloooooooo,” echoed Chestibor next to Sorin and Dario behind him in the engine room, leaning out the window as far as they could with the new curved metal shields in the way, and then the call echoed up from the other cars, loud enough Sorin could hear it even over the whipping wind, the sound of the swamp sloshing under the wide skis and mud shoes Sorin had cleaned up and reinstalled early yesterday morning.

“Hard right, Master,” Lyubo shouted, grin visible in his voice, and Sorin turned.

The bomb hit the swamp just where the caterpillar would have been, creating a tidal wave of muck that hit the side of the transport, knocked it sideways with a _crash_.

Sizzled out of existence as it hit the lava-heated sides, shooting a foul-smelling mist into the air, like they were kicking up a dust cloud on a dirt road.

Lyubo whooped, scrambled to the side of the engine car to keep an eye on their quarry. “Jah, hyu better run, ve iz comink for hyu, hyu—dey iz goink due north, Master!”

“Right,” Sorin said, and turned to intercept, barreled straight into the trees in his way and smirked grimly as the caterpillar felled them with a _crash_ , disregarded the debris kicked up and into the fine metal mesh he’d installed over the broken windshield. He heard Lyubo fall flat and brace on the roof, bang his palm on the metal twice—I’m fine, carry on—then—

“Guns!” he shouted, and rolled, feet becoming visible through Sorin’s window just as the thunder of gunfire started, the smell of burning cloth and leather suddenly filling the air.

“Careful!”

“No vorries, Master,” Lyubo crowed, voice shaking in glee, and he braced his feet on the window just above where the hot metal side was, turned so he was half blocked by the metal window shield and could watch their quarry again. “Left!”

Sorin turned a hard left and then an immediate right again, brain racing with angles and trajectories. He barely flinched as the bomb hit the swamp to their right and sent another wave of water into the side of the caterpillar as the transport snaked around the area of impact. “Nice,” Lyubo shouted, as Dario pulled his head back in sputtering and Chestibor laughed.

“Heads in,” Sorin said absently, and shoved the throttle the rest of the way forwards. Those bombs were annoying, time to close the gap enough the assassins couldn’t use them.

There—open transport, two men; one driving and the other braced in the back, holding a gun steady while he opened fire on the caterpillar, pile of metal boxes at his side with fuses sticking out—hrm, too much firepower there to try just hitting the pile, not if Sorin wanted pieces of assassin that could _talk_ after he was done—he swerved again, absently, barreled over a tree the assassins needed to dodge around, gained another three feet.

“Don’t hit the bombs,” he shouted over the wind, and Chestibor shoved the door open as a shield and locked it into place, propped his own gun on the opening the angle created between the window shield and the doorframe.

“Aww,” Chestibor whined, and shot molten steel down at the wheel of the transport instead.

The transport swerved—wrong way—and the steel hit the back of the transport with a _hiss_ , burning a hole straight through the wood and leaving behind charred, smoking holes, some areas faintly glowing from the beginnings of embers. The assassin shouted, threw himself back from the hatch, shot blind and hit the door Chestibor was hiding behind. Sorin gritted his teeth and pulled the lever to change the angle of the shields, heard the gears grind all along the caterpillar behind them as they slotted into their new position, as the caterpillar pulled just slightly out of the water for a few precious seconds of lower wind resistance before falling back onto the swamp and bouncing up again. They caught up.

Sorin turned left, spun the caterpillar into a wide arc, pulled the lever to lock them into a straight line in a way that whipped the tail out just as Lyubo pushed off the side and shot at the car, whooping. The gunner turned his weapon towards him, fired once, twice, and then Lyubo was in the transport, longsword out, knocked the musket barrel away with the blade before sliding the sword around the metal and through the gunner’s throat. He let go with one hand as the driver turned sharply, brakes screaming, and caught the musket flying by and whipped it towards the driver as the gunner crumpled and the transport dove through two narrow trees—

Sorin cursed, unlocked the cars as he slammed the shield flaps back to neutral, kicked the balance over as he turned sharply back towards the transport—nobody on top now, and everyone else would be braced, he didn’t have to worry about throwing anyone off by accident—the caterpillar turned on one ski and righted itself, knocking a line of trees over as it went—the impact knocked Sorin forward, vibration almost forcing his hands on the wheel to turn—where was the transport—

\--an explosion in a clearing in front of them had Sorin slamming on the brakes, grabbing Chestibor even as the jaeger shoved himself back into the cabin and on top of Sorin, as a huge wave of mud and debris hit the side of the caterpillar and flowed in.

Too much—the transport hadn’t had that many bombs, how—

“ _Traitor_ ,” howled a voice Sorin didn’t know, cutting through the silence in the forest post-explosion like a knife. “Traitor and _coward_! Blackheart! Dishonorable—“

“All clear,” Lyubo called over the shouting. “Hy gots der prisoner contained!”

“You _dare_ —“

“Ah-ah, dun move now, sveetie, dis ting iz sharper den it looks, und hyu friend’s gon feels loaded—“

Veli whistled, once, sharply—an all clear. Immediately, Chestibor shoved himself off of Sorin and reached over to right him in the seat, giving him an obvious quick once-over. “Hyu hokay, Master?”

“Fine,” Sorin said, and opened the driver’s side door, jumped out in the wake of a wave of swamp muck. Hrm, he was pretty well covered… Oh well. Chestibor followed, vaulting himself up and out Sorin’s door without any apparent effort, landing on one side of Sorin just as Dario reached him from the other.

…Well, good, Sorin was going for impressive-looking anyway. He considered taking a moment to go and get a better gun of his own—he still only had the spot welder, and that would be messy to say the least, but—no, he was okay with messy for now. Madness beat like waves against the inside of his skull, the backs of his eyes, giving him itchy feet. He marched past the trees and into the clearing in front of them—twenty meters, too far, he needed to work on turn radius just as soon as he had a moment—

The clearing they entered was completely devastated, trees felled in all directions, some on the edges broken in two from the blast and still smoking. Just inside the perimeter, the transport they had been following laid on its side, bombs and what looked like supplies the assassins had been carrying scattered across the forest floor and amongst the debris, half buried in the charred remains of the foliage that had stood there just two minutes ago. The corpse of the gunner was sprawled out amongst them, and Lyubo was on his feet, boots planted and blade tip and pilfered gun pointed at the throat of the driver, who was pinned under the transport and bleeding profusely, grimacing in pain and anger.

Lyubo’s uniform jacket was stained with blood—hole in his right side, another in his right shoulder, a third just below that on his chest. He was standing easily, holding both weapons without wavering. Sorin set it aside in a mental file labeled TO BE DEALT WITH LATER and considered his next move.

“…Haul him out,” he said finally. “Lyubo, step back.”

Lyubo did, immediately, as Chestibor and Dario went forward and tipped the transport back upright again, freeing the driver. The longsword got sheathed, but the musket remained, still pointed at their prisoner’s head. Sorin very carefully did not cross Lyubo’s line of fire as he strolled around and crouched down, hands in his pockets.

He smiled at the driver, wide and angry. “Hello! I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Sorin.” The man scoffed, started laughing.

“Just another madboy to me—“ Sorin shot the metal gun at the ground next to the man’s head. He howled, tried to pull away from the spreading puddle. The smell of burned swamp muck and cooling steel filled the air.

“This is not a game,” Sorin told him, as pleasantly as he could manage. “And I am not playing. I have a gun that shoots metal hot enough to eat through steel bars the size of your hand in seconds pointed at your head, and I am just angry enough to use it. I’m _going_ to use it, actually, as soon as I get _what I want_ from you. I’d say that to you, right now, I am a hell of a lot more than just another madboy.” The assassin stared at him, eyes wide, mouth half open. Sorin watched belief slowly slide over the man’s face, and understanding, and fear. Sorin widened his grin. “Good, we understand each other. Now, like I was saying, I have a few questions for you.”

“Burn in Hell,” the assassin spat.

Sorin hit him with the butt of his metal gun, watched with some satisfaction as his head snapped to the side with a grunt of pain, as blood trickled out his mouth. “Language,” Sorin said, levelly as he could. “And here I was trying to be polite. I see that’s not going to work with you!” He flipped the gun around and rested the muzzle against the assassin’s forehead. It was steel of his own design—fast cooling, but still hot enough for the assassin to flinch. Sorin ignored it. “Let’s try this, then. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer, or I am going to burn a hole in your forehead and fill your skull with molten steel.”

“You don’t scare me, madboy,” the man growled, teeth bared like he was ready to bite.

“You should know that’s usually a pretty big tell that you are, in fact, scared,” Sorin informed him. “I have it from a fairly high authority on these things, even. On a similar note, I’ve been snarled at by professionals, and you just look ridiculous.”

“You don’t get it,” the man said, and grinned. “I’m already dead, and you won’t be far behind.”

Sorin blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I guess it works out,” the man mused, beginning to blink rapidly, like he was having some trouble focusing. His eyes were bloodshot. Had they always been— “Hunting dog chasing his prey, and doesn’t know what he’s caught until the viper strikes.” He coughed, and more blood came up. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, and there was a broken glass bauble there, fastened to his wrist with a leather band, and under his sleeve the shadows were moving—

“ _Spiders_ ,” Sorin snapped, and shoved himself away from the dying man as he started to laugh. Sorin felt himself be picked up and the world whirl around him as the man’s laughter turned to coughing, turned to gasping for air. A fine swarm of baby spiders were visible now from Sorin’s vantage point over Chestibor’s shoulder, crawling up the man’s arm and over his body, beginning to spread around the ground where he lay—

Lyubo fired at the bombs from clear across the clearing. The explosion was deafening, dust flying every which way from the blast. Sorin got a mouthful of it and started to cough; by the time he could breathe again he was back at the caterpillar, ears ringing, as Chestibor patted him down for baby spiders and Dario and Premisl hovered nearby, Premisl perched on the roof of the caterpillar like a particularly concerned-looking gargoyle. “Stop it, none of them are on me,” he gasped, and shoved Chestibor’s hand away. “ _Damn_ it, he was our _only lead_. Where’s Lyubo?”

“Here, Master,” Lyubo said, jogging up. Sorin checked his injured side on automatic—Lyubo wasn’t even limping, although the wounds would have to be checked for musket shot at some point… (Too many of his jaegers had gotten injured by these people now, Chestibor and Dario and Zbignev and Premisl and Bosko and Lyubo—twice—and _Milosh_ had nearly _died—_ ) “Ve should go, der clearing iz all fire now, iz gon schpread to der odder trees soon.”

“ _No_ ,” Sorin snapped. “No, we’re going to put the flames out and check the remains. There might be something there, a—an order, or a map, or—I’ll take a damn _name_ at this point—“

A blast went off from the clearing, cutting Sorin off. He hit the ground with an _ooph_ , Chestibor on top of him again. “ _How are there more bombs in there_ ,” he shouted, suddenly furious. “This is _ridiculous_ , it’s like it’s _designed to make it impossible for me to learn anything_.”

“Hy suspect it iz,” Veli said, wryly, from the other side of the caterpillar. Sorin looked under the carriage and saw him, similarly flat on the ground, glow faintly reflected on the metal, face wry.

“You are _not helping_ ,” Sorin snapped, opting for the more relevant point over his initial thought of _why the hell are you eavesdropping over there you idiot_ , as _another_ bomb went off. He gritted his teeth, shut his eyes tight. _Think_ , he ordered himself, forcing his brain onto the well-worn, straight tracks and sharp edges of his fugues. _He had to have said something, done something… They were prepared for capture, and he mentioned the death being_ fitting _, why did that matter—he’d been shouting to someone about cowardice, was he supposed to meet them in the clearing? He obviously didn’t expect the place to blow…_

“Dey must be buried under der debris,” Chestibor was musing, from where he was squashing Sorin. “So vhen der schtoff gets burned op der fire hits anodder vun.”

“It _looked_ like a schtock pile,” Lyubo mused. Sorin stilled.

“Tracks,” he said.

“Vot?” Premisl asked.

“Vat about tracks?” Veli asked.

Sorin didn’t answer him. “Chestibor, let me up. I need someone to do a circuit, check the clearing for transport tracks.”

“Vot doez—“

Sorin hissed, annoyed, and Premisl shut up. “It’s a stock pile? How did they get everything there? So many bombs that they’re _still going off_ after that fire’s been burning—“ An explosion went off again, filling the air with smoke and booming echoes, leaving Sorin’s ears ringing again. “There are too _many_ ,” Sorin said, grinning. “Either they had to drive it here, which means we have a _trail_ , or, as I _suspect_ since we didn’t hear a transport speeding away when their man started shouting, they _walked_ them here, and _that_ means—“

“Dey iz nearby,” Veli filled in, and Sorin looked under the car at him, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, feeling the madness rushing around him fierce and sharp and _furious_ , and Veli grinned back.

* * *

“—like a bat out of hell! I swear, the damn thing was spitting fire. I blew the stockpile and barely escaped with my life, Slaven!”

“And left Filip and Kobe to be roasted, it sounds like!”

“They were already dead, there was a thrice-damned _jaegermonster_ in the transport with them. There was nothing I could do except destroy as much of the evidence as I could get at—“

“Oh, spare me, Funske. You abandoned them, you abandoned the mission—“

“This mission was bloody _ridiculous_! I told you all, I told you, we should have just met up with the Witness and the Guild when we found out where he was going instead of trying to _gain favor_ like this—“

“Shut your fat mouth. That ain’t your call to make.”

“Well, now we’re three down, and no closer to killing our madboy than we were before! And we’ve made him _mad_ , if he’s started tracking us—“

“You afraid of a madboy, Funske?”

“Seven Hells, yes, I’m afraid of a madboy. This one uses _lava_ and _molten steel_ , Slaven, and travels with _eleven jaegers_. Jaegers the great and powerful _Baron Wulfenbach_ thought were necessary to keep him in line! There is a damn _reason_ I didn’t want to get anywhere near him. You’re all nuts, in my opinion.”

“Well, reckon he can’t be that great if you lost him that quick, is all I’m saying. The jaegers, neither, to be frank…”

“Ha! I only got away because he was busy dealing with the explosion! If he’d seen me and they’d followed, no way I’d have gotten back here in one piece.”

“Ho no, sveetie, hyu gots beck here in vun piece becawz ve vanted to see vhere hyu iz goink, jah?”

“ _Shit_!”

“The gun— _hrgck_ …”

“Verra conseederate ov hyu, really, to leave soch a nize trail. Oddervise ve may haff hed to ecktually _vork_ for it! Nize gon, by der vay. Verra goot balance. Hoy, Master, all clear!”

“Thank you, Premisl. Hi there! I’m Sorin Heterodyne.”

* * *

Sorin wasn’t exactly surprised when the two assassins stared at him like he’d just walked in and claimed to be the devil himself, considering the conversation he’d just overheard. They clearly had no idea what game they’d been playing, were entirely unprepared for him to actually be something of a _threat_.

Well, that was a mistake they’d never have the chance to make again. Now that he’d told them his name, there was no way they’d be walking out of this room alive.

“…No,” said the one they’d been following, the one Veli had around the neck and off the ground enough his legs swung, fruitlessly—Funske, Sorin thought. Names were important. He was going to kill these men, he’d know their names while he did it.

“That—“ said the other assassin—Slaven—turning his head to stare at Sorin with wide, horrified eyes and ignoring Premisl prodding his temple a bit harder with the muzzle of the gun in warning. “You _can’t_ —“

“Yep, I am,” Sorin interrupted brightly, and stepped out of the doorway. “I don’t think your man in the clearing knew either. Boy, did someone not brief _you_ thoroughly, right?” He paused, waiting to see if they’d say anything else, but they didn’t. He shrugged, and continued. “Anyway, no need to tell me your names, I just heard them.”

“But the _Baron_ —“ Funske again. Sorin turned to look at him directly, incredulous, wondered vaguely what his face was doing when the man flinched. The world was sharp enough to cut right now, little things like facial features and the _feelings of the men who’d tried to kill him and his_ seemed pretty immaterial.

“The Baron knows,” he assured the—Funske, raising his eyebrow. “What, you’re assassins and you’ve never heard of a cover story?”

“We are _not_ assassins, you filthy, crazy— _oomph_!”

Premisl brought the butt of the gun back around, face twisted into a snarl, opened his mouth to say something. Sorin raised a hand, shook his head. “That’s alright,” he said, and Premisl subsided. He turned to the assassin again, let the fury bubbling under the sharp haze on the world boil to the surface, come out the edges of his smile. “I want to _hear_ this. Not assassins? Then, if you’ll pardon my language, _what the ever-loving Hells_?”

The assassins flinched. Sorin grinned wider, waited for the man to dredge up what little courage he could to answer. He wasn’t disappointed. “We are—Chosen by the Witness of Devastation to get _rid_ of filth like you—“

“Okay,” Sorin interrupted. “Thank you, shut up.”

Premisl helpfully covered the man’s mouth, tight enough Sorin could see his claws digging into the man’s face, see the skin under it turn red and white. Sorin turned away, considered the wall behind him for a minute.

Religious fanatics. Well, that explained a lot—the comment in the clearing that some metaphorical set-up for his death was _fitting_ , for one, and why they’d targeted him of all people. If they weren’t assassins, they may not even have been paid for this, could maybe have just been pointed in the right direction. These ones sounded like they’d been going for brownie points from someone, some “Witness.”

So that’s who Sorin needed to ask about then. And quickly—they wouldn’t have long with these two, probably. If nothing else, someone might eventually come looking for them—there wasn’t much indication that too many people were staying in this horrible little shack on the edge of a village struggling to hold its own against a swamp, but you never knew. Sorin hummed to himself, ordered his priorities, and turned around again.

“So! Here is how this is going to go,” he said brightly. “I am going to ask you _questions_ , and you are going to _answer_ them, as succinctly and clearly as possible. I’m pretty _busy_ these days, I don’t have time for crazy religious monologues.”

“ _You dare_ call _us_ craz— _hrngh_.”

“He said schot op,” Veli growled, as the man clawed desperately at his tightened arm. He lightened it again, glanced at Sorin as the man gasped, slumped in his grip. Sorin nodded and turned back to his prey.

“Thank you, Velimir. All right, boys. Are you ready?” He waited for a response, watched for a second as the two assassins looked away—at the door, at their captors, at anyone but Sorin.

Well. That wouldn’t do at _all_. “ _Pay attention_.”

Premisl gripped him by the hair, forcibly turned the assassin’s head to look at Sorin, shook him until he opened his eyes. Veli grabbed his under the chin and did the same. Sorin waited until all eyes were on him, and then grinned.

“Good. Let’s begin.”

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

_2_

“Oh, good,” Sorin said, glancing over his shoulder as Veli opened the door to the engine car and then turning right back to look at the road. “I was just about to send Stani to call you. I need a break from driving. Let me pull over so we can all switch.”

Veli paused in the doorway, blinking at the back of Sorin’s head, and then shook his own head and walked in, closing the door behind him. Well, he thought, trying for cheerful and falling depressingly flat. _That_ was a much easier sell than he had expected!

“Hyu ken probably chust climb over der divider,” Zbignev was saying, as Sorin went through the process of slowing the caterpillar down enough to pull over to the side of the road and brake. Veli nodded to Stani, who tipped her hat from where she’d wedged herself between the anvil and the wall, and walked over to the divider. “Veli iz skinny, he ken fit trough dere, und den nobody hez to leave der caterpillar.”

“You can’t though, and I am taking _your_ seat,” Sorin said, voice absent as he focused on what his hands were doing. Veli’s heart sank. Not as easy a sell as he’d thought, then.

“Ah—“ Zbignev started, casting a look at Veli before turning back to their Master. “Bot—“

“I can’t sleep now anyway,” Sorin said, and finally maneuvered the caterpillar off the road. “I’m too keyed up still—too much to organize in my head. I’m going to stay up here, I want to talk to Veli anyway.”

“Bot—“

“I’ll stay in the engine car,” Sorin offered, and turned to Zbignev, cast Veli another quick look before turning back. “Promise. I will be in the armored vehicle at all times, I’ll just slide over.”

“Hy von’t be able to drive und protect hyu at de same time,” Veli pointed out. “Ve agreed novun vould ride on de roof during de night, bot hyu vas gonna have a jaeger next to hyu vit his hands free und a jaeger behind hyu.”

“A jaeger driving and a jaeger behind me will be fine,” Sorin said negligently, and took off his seatbelt. “Zbignev, move.”

Veli shut his eyes, took a deep breath. Well, all right, this was going to be a fight after all. Good thing he’d come equipped with an arsenal of reasons why Sorin should actually _listen_ for once. “Master Sorin—“

“Captain Velimir,” Sorin replied, and looked him straight in the eye as he flicked a switch Veli hadn’t actually seen before on the dashboard.

A second later, there was a _zap_ as a fly hit the fine grille Sorin had installed instead of a windshield, and the fly fell onto the nose of the caterpillar with a small plopping noise.

Behind Veli, Stani whistled, low and amused. Veli shut his mouth. Sorin nodded, jaw tight, and turned back around. “Zbignev. Out.”

“Jah, Master,” Zbignev said, and got out. Veli waited until he’d shut the door firmly behind him to crawl over the divider and take Sorin’s vacated seat.

Sorin didn’t say anything. Veli waited until the door behind the engine car had opened and shut, and then started the caterpillar.

The silence stretched, long and empty except for the occasional bug hitting the electrified grille on the front—no flash of light to ruin the driver’s night vision, Veli noticed, and wondered where Sorin was sending the sparks. It was something he’d maybe have asked if they weren’t… doing whatever they were doing right now that wasn’t quite fighting and wasn’t quite forgiving; asked and let Sorin ramble about…grounding or light or whatever until he’d either tired himself out or got around to talking about what he wanted to talk about.

Sorin stared out the side window, still and brooding and silent. The dark red scabs from the glass peppering his forehead and his left cheek and the bridge of his nose stood out starkly against the too-pale skin of his face, the dark bruises under his eyes. (They’d scar—they’d been deep, and Sorin had waited too long to clean them out, but they’d be relatively small and fade in time. Sorin hadn’t seemed upset, anyway; when Bosko had brought it up he’d pointed out he got worse on the regular working in a forge.)

Behind them, Stani shifted again, yawned loudly and pointedly made herself comfortable against the wall and settled in to “nap.” Veli half watched the road and half watched Sorin out of the corner of his eye, kept his mouth shut, and waited.

“How are Lyubo and Milosh,” Sorin asked finally—he’d been asking every guard who came up to sit next to him, apparently. Veli felt the corner of his mouth quirk up of its own volition, and tipped his head down so the brim of his hat would hide it a bit.

“Fine,” he assured Sorin. “Lyubo iz beck to vun-hundret percent already, und Milosh iz being schmug about haffing leave to eat all our meat. He’ll be ready vhen ve get to de town.”

“Good,” Sorin said, and Veli hummed an agreement. It was good. They were driving into a trap, if their assassins in the shack could be believed, and they’d need all the hands they could get.

The situation was a familiar one. Veli had lost count of the number of times he’d followed a Heterodyne into hell deliberately, trusting that he was strong enough and skilled enough and in the right company to come out the other side alive and victorious. It was a situation he was well-equipped to handle, and one he’d gone into with _Sorin_ more than once at this point.

This time was different. Something about this—Sorin’s frank questions and focused indifference and determined certainty when he said they’d do exactly what the assassins expected him to do, after they’d killed them—something about it was bothering Veli. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

Sorin didn’t acknowledge Veli’s hum, didn’t say anything else, didn’t even look over, and the silence stretched again.

Veli lasted a full ten minutes before he broke. “Vas dat all hyu vanted to ask,” he threw into the silence, knowing it was _ridiculous_ that Sorin not paying attention was driving him up the wall and, quite suddenly, not really caring. “Hyu could probably haff asked dat before going beck to bed, really…”

“No, that wasn’t it,” Sorin said, voice flat, professionally distant. Veli gritted his teeth in the dark and hoped Sorin couldn’t see. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to ask this, is all. Stani mentioned that we’re undermanned. Is that true?”

 _Oh_ , Velimir thought, as the “sleeping” jaeger behind them shifted in a way that sounded distinctly guilty. _Did she_.

“…Hy vouldn’t say ve iz undermanned for most things,” Veli said, carefully. “Especially in a situation vhere hyu can help, bot... in a situation vhere de best ting hyu can do iz schtay out ov things und let os protect hyu, ve… could probably use a few more men on de ground, yez.”

“Hm,” Sorin said, glancing over at Veli. “And I haven’t really been picking up the slack, right?”

Sorin had been actively hindering their efforts to protect him, actually, in from what Veli could tell had been some attempt to ignore the situation entirely. He didn’t say that. For one thing, Sorin seemed to be attempting to keep this talk professional, and it wasn’t Velimir’s place, as Sorin’s Captain, to question his decisions.

For another, it would start a screaming match, and Veli just… wasn’t in the mood to fight with Sorin right now about this. Again.

It seemed he didn’t have to say anything, anyway. Sorin seemed to take his silence as ascent, nodded before turning back to look out through the grille. “Well, you can add a few more jaegers when we get back to Wulfenbach, right?”

Veli blinked. “Uh… yez, hy can do dat.” To be frank, Veli should have done that after _Blecherville_ , but he… well, he hadn’t thought it was necessary at the time. They’d just proven themselves to be a pretty serviceable fighting force, and they were all still pretty high off Sorin _waking up_ and figuring out that being a Spark made him _dangerous_. It hadn’t felt like the right time to be adding new members, and then after…

“How many are you going to need?” Sorin asked. “I can add on another car to the caterpillar while we’re there if necessary, I want to make a few modifications anyway.”

Veli hadn’t really considered it.

If he said that, he’d be admitting to Sorin’s face that he wasn’t nearly as experienced at this as he was pretending to be. He did some quick mental arithmetic. Enough to fill their gaps, but few enough that moving would still be relatively easy…

“…Mebbe five,” he offered, tentatively. “Hy dun haff ennyvun in mind, hy vould haff to see who hy can get, bot—“

“Five’s easy enough,” Sorin said. “I was concerned you were going to say ten or twenty, it—“ He trailed off. Veli waited to find out what “it” would be, but Sorin went back to looking out the window again, silent.

Veli didn’t know what to say to make this better.

He closed his eyes, very briefly, and then opened them again, focused on the dark road stretching out in front of him. “Vun iz probably gonna haff to be an officer,” he forced out. “Or at least anodder NCO.”

He could _feel_ Sorin’s eyes on him, puzzled and focused. He didn’t look back.

“Three officers in sixteen jaegers? Isn’t that a lot?”

“Depends on de rank of de officer,” Veli admitted. “Ve do a lot ov schmall groups, it vill be goot to be able to hand off some ov de running tings to somevun else, und trust dem to take initiative in a situation. Initiative dat iz not ‘let’s break it into tiny bits’,” he amended, wryly. “Hyu vould not _believe_ de number ov tings ve haff encountered vhere dat vas de wrong answer.”

“…I think I’d believe it,” Sorin said, wryly, “but half the jaegers in the squad are corporals. That’s an NCO, isn’t it?”

“Jah,” Veli agreed. “Iz vat hy vas, before hy vas promoted. Hy—“ Veli choked, brain catching up with this mouth. Shit, that wasn’t where he had been planning to take this. Damnation.

Stani was very still behind them in the forge, was trying as hard as she could to pretend she wasn’t there and couldn’t hear anything, Veli could tell. Sorin was looking at him again. Veli stole a glance, and he looked… confused, concerned, he hadn’t gotten the implication, was just reacting to Veli’s reaction. Veli—

“You…” Sorin prompted.

Veli was not going to enjoy this conversation. It was probably going to be a long one.

“Hy,” he started, “iz preddy new at de whole ‘Captain’ ting, really. Hy need somevun who can… tell me if hy iz doing it wrong, becawz hy dun haff de experience most Captains have.”

Sorin frowned, and then to Veli’s surprise, almost visibly puffed up. “You’re doing _fine_ ,” he snapped, clearly offended on Veli’s behalf—crazy offended, even, Spark harmonics everywhere. Veli blinked. “You can’t have fucked up _too_ badly! It’s not like I’ve _actually died_ or anything, and—Who _said_ that to you? No. Nobody gets to insult _my Captain’s competency,_ I’ll—“

“Boss,” Veli interrupted, and he was smiling, couldn’t help it. “Thenks, bot _hy_ iz de vun saying it. Hy iz inexperienced as a Captain, und _definitely_ as a Guard Captain. Hy iz making mistakes. Hy vant to minimize dem.”

Sorin glared at him, full of fire and brimstone, but subsided, slumped back against the seat like he wanted to throw down instead, like he’d _bite_ the next person who implied his Guard Captain may not be infallible.

Something in Veli started to ease.

Probably he shouldn’t. It was actually a _problem_ if Sorin thought Veli couldn’t fuck up, meant he wouldn’t be looking for mistakes in his own corner, and a good leader, a good _Heterodyne_ , needed to be able to look both ways. Sorin really did need an example of what an experienced officer looked like, if only for comparison purposes. And he really shouldn’t leave it like this—like the last week where they were fighting hadn’t even happened, water under the bridge, everything could return to normal now.

Blind faith felt pretty nice, though, Veli wasn’t going to lie.

“Hy feel like hy should point out hyu vas just mad at me for skrewing op all veek, bot hy dun vant to remind hyu dat hyu iz supposed to be not schpeaking to me,” he joked, trying for light. It came out sounding passive-aggressive instead. Veli cringed.

Sorin sighed. “I wasn’t angry because you screwed up,” he said, staring out the window. “I was angry because you went over my head and told my mother that things weren’t okay, and that made her worry and now she doesn’t trust me to take care of myself and is making me go back and—“ he cut himself off, sighed again.

“The thing is, though, you were right, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was just sort of… hoping if I ignored it that it wouldn’t happen again, or something. I don’t know. The point is, you tried to tell me and I wasn’t listening, so you didn’t have many other options at that point.”

“Dat’s true,” Veli allowed.

“So it’s my fault,” Sorin finished, “and you were doing what you’re supposed to do. It’s not your fault there wasn’t anything else you could try.”

“…Mebbe dere vas, though?” Sorin turned to look at him. Veli kept his eyes on the road, shrugged. “Hy mean, _hy_ kan’t tink ov enny, bot—“

“Veli, you didn’t do anything wrong. Blame me like you should and accept my apology and let’s move on,” Sorin said, firmly.

Veli snorted. “Hokay, boss, hyu skrewed op.”

“Sorry,” Sorin said.

“Dat’s hokay.”

“Okay,” Sorin said, and nodded, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He looked out the window again. Veli went back to driving, finally let himself feel relieved.

That had gone a _lot_ better than he had expected. He’d… kind of thought Sorin wouldn’t see it that way, like he’d see it as a betrayal. It had kind of felt like one to Veli, honestly, but… apparently while he hadn’t been paying attention, Sorin had judged him and his actions and found them… reasonable.

Maybe they had been. He always felt like he was walking such a delicate balance with Sorin, like he couldn’t lean too much one way or the other without…

Maybe he could be less careful, then? That would be a relief, really, Veli didn’t like having to overthink everything he did around Sorin. He was sort of used to trusting his instincts when it came to interacting with people, having to check himself all the time was exhausting.

The silence stretched again, relaxed this time. Sorin kept looking out the window, a vaguely thoughtful frown on his face. Veli kept driving.

“I never thought about the fact that you’re the youngest,” Sorin said finally, breaking the quiet.

Veli blinked. Where did that come from? “Mm,” he said, noncommittal.

“Hm,” Sorin said, and sighed. “Guess we make a pair, then.”

Veli smiled again, a little helplessly, at the grille, and felt the rest of the tight knot in his chest ease. Sorin was Sorin, in the end, wasn’t he?

“Ve do alright,” he offered.

“We’ll do better,” Sorin said, and there was—an air of conviction in him, a shiver of madness and Heterodyne harmonics, a promise of excitement to come.

Sorin was Sorin, indeed, and Sorin was a Heterodyne. Better yet, he was beginning to… use it, accept it, grow into it maybe. Veli had never heard Sorin introduce himself as Sorin Heterodyne before the shack. Sorin Heterodyne—no hesitation, no unease, no qualifier of Petrescu. _Heterodyne_.

Veli thought he could probably like that.

“Hokay,” he agreed. “Ve’ll do better.”

“Good.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Tamara stepped out of the darkness and into the center of the road. Veli barely managed to stop the caterpillar before he ran her over.

* * *

“Hokay!” Veli slammed the door to the last car behind him with relish, turned to look at Tamara with his widest, meanest grin. Tamara looked back, arms crossed defensively, perched on her chair like she wanted nothing more than to run, if she hadn't had Chestibor’s hand firmly keeping her in place.

Veli was going to make her wish she’d run. “Hallo, sveetie! _Nize_ ov hyu to drop in! Und so _soon_ after anodder attack, too! _Vat a coincidence_.”

“You can’t go to Cosnebun,” Tamara said, apropos of nothing, eyes scared and jaw set on determined. “Sorin’s driving into a trap.”

Veli blinked. He looked at Chestibor, who was also blinking, and Dario at the door, who looked absolutely nonplussed.

“…Yez, ve know,” Veli said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Did hyu seriously giff hyuself op to tell os _dat_? Dis iz not our first time completink dis circuit, kiddo.”

“If you know, they _why are you still heading there_?” Tamara glared. “I don’t believe Sorin would be so selfish as to—“

“Oh _ho_ ,” Veli interrupted. “Hy dun tink hyu iz in moch ov a position to haff an opinion on Sorin right now, considering hyu iz vorking vit de people trying to keel him.” Tamara flinched. Veli allowed himself to feel vindicated.

“It… wasn’t like that,” she said haltingly, bit her lip, ran a hand over her face, looked away. “Well, it _was_ , but it wasn’t—oh _damn it_. Fine, okay, yes. I was working with them.” She looked back at Veli again, eyes wet and sad and sorry. “I didn’t _hire_ them, though, and I’m not a member of their group, and it wasn’t my idea! I—I didn’t have a choice, you don’t understand. It was my father’s idea!”

“Hyu father,” Veli said, and let himself grin again when Tamara flinched. “Vell! Now ve iz _gettink_ somevhere. From der mountain towns around Mechanicsburg, jah? Hyu haff de accent.”

“I do? Oh, of course I do, and of _course_ you would notice, too.” Tamara slumped. “My father is Lord Mauer of Grunstalk.”

Velimir blinked. “Vat seriously? _Dat_ guy? Vat de dumboozle iz he thinking? He gets more from Mechanicsburg den _Mechanicsburg_ dese days, effer since he made dat treaty vit Master Villiam—“

“That’s just it,” Tamara said flatly. “The treaty. For trade, and also for the pass to help tourists through on the way to Mechanicsburg. The Baron honored it, you see.” Tamara sighed. “And then, all of a sudden, there were rumors about a new Heterodyne. A _dangerous_ Heterodyne, who was going around claiming to be under the Baron’s protection and using the leeway that got him to overthrow towns with a group of jaegermonsters—it didn’t look good, Velimir.”

…Veli could see her point. Granted, he also didn’t care. “So, vat, he hired some assassins to make sure de new scary Heterodyne didn’t make it to Mechanicsburg?”

“I don’t expect _you_ to understand,” Tamara snapped, eyes livid again. “You’d probably have been _thrilled_ if Sorin turned out to be another Old Heterodyne. But the rest of the region was hearing these rumors and panicking. We’re finally stable, we’re finally _growing_. Mechanicsburg going back to raiding would be a disaster. And—my father—“ Her voice cracked again, but she shook her head, rallied. “My _father_ is not a _good person_ —and he’s a controlling person, and he writes _everyone_ off if they’re not immediatelyuseful to him, and—but he _does_ care if his town is going to be a day’s march from a pillaging town! I—maybe not for the right _reasons_ , but he cares, he _does_!

“So, yes, he hired some assassins.” She wiped her eyes, bared her teeth at Veli, every inch of her a challenge. Veli cocked his head at her, let it show on his face how unimpressed he was with her theatrics. “He hired a _guild_ of assassins, who would kill a Spark for very cheap without asking too many questions about who the Spark was or why he needed to be dead, and then he called me away from my studies and told me to go with them. Only—“ Aaaaand there went the fight again. Veli sighed internally. “I was just along to confirm the kill and give the payment, and when I figured out how _wrong_ my father was about Sorin I tried to _leave_.”

Right, Veli had figured that out for himself. Tamara had gotten to know Sorin, who certainly was not bent on the pillaging of every town he came across, and gotten cold feet. “Only notting, sveetie,” he told her, leaning into her space, showing her his _teeth_. “Hyu left, bot hyu didn’t _schtop_ dem, did hyu? Und hyu didn’t tell os vat vas going on.”

“They would have killed me,” Tamara protested, a little of the fire Veli had kind of liked in her returning in her indignation. “They were reading his mail! I did what I could—“

Veli couldn’t care less. He stood back up, cracked his neck. Tamara fell silent. “Vatever. Let’s get on vit de interrogatink now, jah? Ve iz busy jaegers! Ve iz headink to a fight, see.”

“You’re not heading to a fight, you’re heading to _ground zero_ ,” Tamara snapped. “They’re waiting for you, and when you get there the Witness is going to have them blow up the city!”

“ _What_ ,” Sorin said, from behind the door.

Someone who sounded remarkably like Stani, who was supposed to be keeping Sorin _in the engine car_ , sighed.

The door slammed open as Sorin stormed into the room, eyes alight with fury and fists clenched. Veli gave up and stepped aside to give him access to Tamara. “What do you _mean_ they’re going to blow up the city,” he growled, back straight and madness swirling around him like a cloak. “Why would they even considerthat as an option? That is the most inefficient, hare-brained assassination attempt I’ve ever heard of! There’s no guarantee I’ll be in the blast radius at all, and there are _thousands of people_ living in Cosnebun, _tens_ of thousands—“

“They’re Sparks,” Tamara said, sounding suddenly tired. “They’re all—well, Cosnebun is _known_ for being primarily—“

“So they don’t _matter_?”

“Not to the Witness.” Tamara put her head in her hands. “The… the Guild of the Witness of Devastation is… they’re not so much a Guild as a _cult_ , and their mission is to eradicate the Spark and its creations from the face of the Earth. They—well, _philosophically_ they don’t care about the loss of life of minor Sparks, really. But—but I never thought—they’re not bad _people_ , Sorin, really, they would never do this if the Witness hadn’t seen an opportunity—“

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Sorin snapped, voice practically shaking with rage. Tamara flinched. “Every single attempt they’ve made has had collateral damage! _Every single one_!”

“They haven’t!” Tamara protested weakly. “They’ve been careful—“

“They’ve been trying to stay at _arm’s length_.” Sorin sneered. “They’ve been trying to set up _traps_ that I’ll fall into, only the thing with traps is that they can _catch someone else_. Weekend Spiders are deadly no matter _who_ gets bitten by them! Anyone in the castle could have died! _Five_ of my jaegers nearly did! We’re _lucky_ Rozalia didn’t send too many people in to try to clean the rooms!”

Tamara screwed her eyes shut. When she spoke, it was choked. “They—wouldn’t have considered that,” she admitted. “All those people worked for a Spark.”

“The driver after you left didn’t work for a Spark!”

“He came to a Spark’s town specifically looking for protection.”

“How about the _inn keeper_ ,” Sorin snarled. “When they _blew up my engine_. What did _he_ have to do with this?”

Tamara opened her eyes, looked at Sorin bleakly. “He let you stay,” she whispered, choked.

“So it’s okay to _burn him and his livelihood and all his customers to the ground_?” Sorin roared.

“Of _course_ not,” Tamara shouted back. “I don’t agree with any of this!”

“You _let it happen_!”

“ _There was nothing I could do_!”

“Bullshit,” Sorin said, and turned around. “You didn’t care. Velimir, I want to talk to you outside.”

“Jah,” Veli said, and waited just long enough for Sorin to storm back out of the car to nod Dario back over to the prisoner and follow.

* * *

Sorin spent a good twenty minutes pacing back and forth in front of the car muttering to himself, and then another ten pacing while heterodyning. Veli waited, quietly, for him to be done.

“Do you think she’s telling the truth this time,” Sorin finally said, abruptly, like he hadn’t spent a half-hour not engaging Velimir in conversation. Veli leaned back against the Caterpillar and crossed his arms, glanced up at the tree tops as he thought.

“Hy dun see vhy she vould haff come if she izn’t,” he admitted. “Iz really enough for os to just keel her, und turning us back tovards Castle Wulfenbach iz pretty bad for her assassin friends, really. Unless dey iz gonna ambush us on der road dere, hy guess? But ve already proved dat vas a bad hydea.”

“Hrmgh.” Sorin ran a hand through his hair, movements jerky and frustrated. “Fine.” He slumped, all at once, next to Veli on the car, rubbed at his eyes. “So the situation as I see it is: we either spring the trap like we’d planned, and very possibly kill an entire town of people—“

“Und hyu,” Veli interjected, just to put that on the table. Sorin rolled his eyes.

“An _entire town of people_ and me, okay, sure. We either do that, or we do what Tamara _clearly_ thinks is our best option and run. But _if_ we run, our crazy guild of assassin cultists do what?”

“…Vell, dey vas gonna blow op a town dis time,” Veli said, reluctantly. “Hy guess dey try to blow op Castle Wulfenbach?”

“Mm,” Sorin said. “Which, on the one hand, is significantly less likely to succeed—particularly if the Baron knows they’re coming—but on the other hand is just…” Sorin sighed, looked at Veli seriously. “I am having a really hard time,” he said slowly, “with the concept of letting these… these _assholes_ just—do whatever they want. After what they’ve already done, I kind of doubt they won’t blow the town anyway, just because they can.”

Veli thought about that. “Vould be a goot vay to get some pipple off Castle Wulfenbach, maybe? Hy mean, de Baron vould definitely come to tek a look at dat. Und den it vould maybe be easier to schneak onto de castle. Vell… no it _vouldn’t_ , but dese iz de guyz who thought dey could keel hyu in de cabin ov de Caterpillar, so…”

Sorin sighed. “I feel like we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Because if we call for backup, there’s nothing to say it won’t be too late, right? And right now we _know where they are_. And it’s an _entire town of people_ , Veli! Innocent people!”

Veli hummed, non-committal, as Sorin kept talking, watched as he—inevitably—talked himself into… doing what Veli knew he was going to do all along. Sorin wouldn’t be Sorin if he let something like this stand, it wasn’t in him.

Four days ago, Veli would have seriously considered knocking Sorin out and hightailing it back to Castle Wulfenbach. He’d have been right, too, because four days ago Sorin was still acting like a dazed townie boy who couldn’t imagine he was in any way important to anyone outside of his personal sphere of influence—who had never wanted to command anyone and was much happier ignoring the fact that he would one day have to.

Yesterday, Sorin had introduced himself as Sorin Heterodyne.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Veli had decided that he would only ever have one response to someone who could claim that last name.

“Hy tink ve can take them schtill,” he said, interrupting Sorin mid-sentence. “Ve haff somevun who knows de plan, und ve know vat ve iz going into. Iz not so different from de odder times, really.”

Sorin blinked, tilted his head at Veli. He looked surprised.

…Yeah, Veli had kind of been fucking up. Well, they were already fixing that, so.

“So we walk into the trap,” Sorin said, like he was confirming.

…Well. “Mebbe ve _schneak_ into de trap,” Veli clarified. “Und try not to set off de trap, since de trap iz explosions.”

“Ah,” Sorin said, sounding thoughtful. “So basically I should leave all the jaegers with the Caterpillar and go myself, got it.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Veli started, affronted, and then the rest died on his lips, breath caught in his throat as Sorin grinned at him, teasing and crazy and a bit excited and—

“Kidding, kidding,” he assured. “Let’s go catch some assassins.”

* * *

_It took about seven months until Veli could comfortably switch from ‘you’ll see’ to ‘I told you so’ with the rest of the Guard, when it came to Sorin. He didn’t, though. Mostly because, while the rest of them were being vividly reminded what personal loyalty felt like, Veli was getting a pretty brutal refresher course on what it felt like to be in love._

_Okay, he told_ Blazh _‘I told you so’, but only because Blazh had_ really _deserved it._

* * *

“Your father got one thing right,” Sorin said, as soon as the door to the car was open and before he was even fully in the room. Tamara looked up from where she’d been staring at her lap, surprised. “I am, actually, dangerous. And I am going to make that very, very clear to your assassin friends, Tamara, and you are going to help me. Because this time, you really _don’t_ have a choice.”

* * *

_3_

Stealth was not really Veli’s purview, or indeed, the purview of any of the jaegers on Sorin’s Guard—which was less Veli’s personal bias and more the fact that it was the purview of very, very few jaegermonsters in general. It just felt a bit like cheating, and also a bit like wasting the excellent resources that were their Masters’ hard work in making them as physically scary as possible and the centuries of excellent built up reputation. To be frank, stealth wasn’t really the purview of many _Heterodynes_ of Veli’s acquaintance, and certainly wasn’t Sorin’s.

“They’re watching the road,” Tamara reminded them nervously, bent over a map with Sorin as he drew circles around the places Tamara knew there would be bombs--one near the home of the Spark Sorin was supposed to be staying with, one in the center of town near Town Hall and the Square, and one, finally, in the artisan district, _just because_. “We can’t just _drive up_ , they’ll set them off—“

“We’ll sneak in over the wall,” Sorin said decisively. “I have a modified harpoon gun that should get us over the top pretty easily—“

“What about the guards?”

“We’re going to have eleven jaegers and a harpoon gun, Tamara. One that has a detachable harpoon that shoots low levels of electricity into what it attaches to—to knock them out, and you have no room to make that face at me. I’m not worried about the guards, I’m worried about the _assassins your father hired_.”

And just like that, they were sneaking in.

Sorin parked the caterpillar a mile off, hid it in a copse of trees off the road. It wouldn’t really be secure there, but if they got any closer the assassins would spot them, and then this would all be pointless. Sorin loaded the jaegers up with some of his more volatile Sparkworks—the ones that could be used as weapons with an inventive enough or desperate enough mind--and grabbed all the tools he’d modified personally and the harpoon and a tiny modified cannon you could shove small flammable pieces into and shoot out _on fire_ (this sounded a lot more impressive and useful than it actually was, but it worked well enough if all you needed was a quick flame or a way to heat something up fast and didn’t have a match or lighter, and Sorin insisted all it needed was a better way to create momentum).

He took a moment to ramp up Snappy’s guard protocol, too, cranked the lightning spitter up higher than Veli had ever seen him do before with a set jaw and hard, sharp eyes.

Then they walked to town.

Cosnebun had a wall—not surprising, most towns that were serious about sticking around for longer than a year had a wall of _some_ sort—but it wasn’t really all that well-built, by Veli’s estimation. For one thing, it looked like it was made entirely out of wood, and it wasn’t all that high. For another, it had at a glance maybe something like six guards on it, and they had an air about them of people waiting for their shift to be over so they could go do something actually important.

Veli crested the damn thing with a running start and a good bounce, and had gotten up behind the only guard in hearing distance and knocked him out before he’d even turned around all the way to see what had made that thunking noise. He crouched, waited for the other guards to lose interest in squinting over at his position, and then signaled the others up.

 _Thunk_ , _whirr_ , and Sorin was cresting the top, shooting over the edge with the excess momentum and flipping all the way over—Veli caught him, knocked the damn gun out of his hands before he could accidentally dislocate his own shoulder with it again.

“Ow,” Sorin said, almost conversationally. “Thanks. Really got to fix that. Guards?”

“Not paying attention, und dat vun iz just knocked out.”

“Good,” Sorin said, and hit the button to lower the gun again to let the others use it. “Let’s go.”

“Mm,” Veli agreed. He turned so Sorin could climb onto his back, swung down off the wall as the whir of the retracting chain started up again, and dropped.

He shoved off the wall on the way down, adjusted his balance to compensate for Sorin’s bulk, leaned into the bounce to land on a roof in a crouch. “Show-off,” Sorin muttered into his ear, grin in his voice. Veli turned and grinned back at point blank range, waved at Blazh on top of the wall. Blazh made a rude gesture back and waved Sorin’s gun at them. “They catching up?”

“Right behind os,” Veli assured, as Tamara came to peer over the edge, eyes wide. “Ve hunt?”

Sorin snorted, adjusted his grip so his legs were firmly wrapped around Veli’s waist, cannon gripped firmly in his hands in front of Velimir’s neck. “Yes.”

Veli grinned wider, turned towards their first touch point, and pushed off.

* * *

Veli slammed through the window hooves first. Sorin shot the harpoon gun before the assassin could do more than look up and turn, got him solidly through the gut, flipped and held the “shock” button down. The assassin spasmed and hit the ground, splattering a little blood. Sorin retracted the harpoon with a yank as Veli landed, stepped over the twitching assassin without a glance.

“Looks like they’re still setting them up,” he muttered, kneeling at the contraption the assassin had been working on and diving head-first into the mechanism.

“Mm,” Veli agreed, only half paying attention as he took in the rest of the room—one window, one door, no furniture, good centimeter of dust on the floor, ice box with a jar of something green-tinted, a few papers lying on the box lid. “De explosive iz here,” he called, and waited for Sorin to look over distractedly before going to the door and looking out. Vacant sign on the door, but none down the hall. People lived in the other apartments, then. Veli couldn’t hear anyone else, though… He shut the door and bolted it, turned back to the papers.

“Hoy, boss, iz instructions.”

“You’re kidding,” Sorin said, pulling his head out again to give the papers in Veli’s hand the look he used to give customers who asked him to build them Sparky metal sex toys, when he occasionally set up as a traveling smith for extra money on the road. He took the instructions, stared at the first page incredulously. “Oh my god, there’s a _diagram_.”

Veli snickered, checked the window one more time before signaling an all-clear.

“Incompetent?”

“Or they were waiting for us to get here to set them up,” Sorin said darkly, and set the instructions back down. “Tamara seemed to think they’d be able to blow them the moment we got into range. If this guy was putting it together—“

“Mm,” Veli agreed. “Ve need to hurry.”

“See if you guys can’t do a smell test on the compound,” Sorin said, turned back to the bomb. “Okay,” he muttered, “countdown function, wiring to spark the explosive, cut here and here to disarm, then, but how— “

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Tamara said from the window, voice cracking through the last word. Veli’s head snapped up to see her slap a hand over her own mouth, eyes locked on the assassin. Veli looked too. Oh, his eyeballs had exploded. That was always pretty gross…

“If hyu iz gonna be sick, do it in de corner. We can’t leave a sign ve vas here outside,” he said, watching Chestibor squeeze through the window behind her and take in the scene quickly. Veli nodded towards Tamara. Chestibor rolled his eyes and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, started to steer her into the room so Dario and Milosh could climb through.

“I—thought you said it was nonlethal,” Tamara was saying, and now she sounded like she was edging towards hysteria. Great.

“What was,” Sorin said without looking up from where he was bent elbow deep into the bomb mechanism.

“The _gun_ ,” Tamara snapped.

“ _Keep hyu voice down_ ,” Veli growled at her, and she flinched.

“Why would I have brought a gun that can’t kill things against assassins that have been trying to kill me for months?” Sorin asked, sounding half distracted by whatever he was looking at.

“You said—“

“I said there was a nonlethal setting,” Sorin interrupted. “And that I’d use it against the guards if it came to that.”

“You shot him before he had a chance to respond!”

“ _Damn it_ ,” Sorin snapped, and pulled his head out of the bomb, eyes sharp and shoulders tense. “Tamara, there is enough explosive in that jar to take out half the block if set off, at _least_. Get off your high horse and come help me figure out what we’re dealing with, or get out. There are at least two more of these, Hells know how many assassins, and _we don’t have time_.”

Tamara’s mouth snapped shut. She looked over at the green stuff, still in its jar on ice, and then back at the dead assassin again, looking genuinely torn. “I…” she started, and then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them and looked at Sorin. “What are they using as a power source,” she asked, and walked around the dead body to crouch by Sorin, peer into the bowels of the bomb over his shoulder.

It occurred to Veli that he’d just witnessed Tamara’s first kill, in a way. Death by Heterodyne. She had brought Sorin here, after all, even if she hadn’t realized what it would mean. It was weirdly significant, even if he didn’t particularly care about Tamara’s state of mind. He didn’t remember his first kill at all.

He sure did remember Sorin’s. Sorin had woken up shaking with tears on his cheeks for weeks after. This one, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t keep him up at all.

Veli went to go help Dario poke at the green stuff. He had orders, after all.

“So vat iz dat,” he asked, as Dario carefully unscrewed the top on the jar. The stuff looked like some sort of oily paste, but Veli didn’t know why it was green.

“Hy dunno,” Dario said, considering. “It schmells sorta like dynamite but…”

“Hoy Master,” Milosh said, from where he was checking over the assassin. “Dis guy haz a face mask ting on him.”

“Hmmmmm,” Dario said. As Sorin pulled himself out of the bomb to look, Dario lifted the lid of the jar to sniff at the paste there. With a shrug, he licked it.

A few seconds later, his eyes rolled back in his head. Veli scrambled to catch the lid before it got too shaken as Dario hit the ground with a _thud_ , dust flying everywhere.

“ _Dario_!” Sorin shouted.

“Whoo!” Dario said from his sprawled position on the floor before Sorin could say or do more than that, somewhere in the dust cloud. “ _Dot_ iz nhytroglyceereen und _lots_ ov arsenic. Und hy tink mint, ektually, hy dunno vhy, mebbe to mask der garlic? Iz pretty gross.”

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Sorin said, succinctly, and then there was a blast of wind from Sorin’s general direction and the dust went up in a _whirl_ , hitting the walls of the room and falling down in piles and leaving a clean ring around Sorin, Tamara, and the jaegers. Sorin set down the piece of bomb he’d been holding—correction, the wind machine, it looked like now—and the wrench, and skidded over to Dario, who was staring kind of dazedly at the ceiling and absently wiping blood from his nosebleed off his face. “Oh my _god_ , what is _wrong_ with you? Why would you lick an _unidentified explosive_ , you’re such an _idiot_ , how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Tree,” Dario answered correctly. “Hy iz fine, Master, iz notting. Hyu should schtop shoutink, though.”

“ _Don’t tell me to stop shouting_ ,” Sorin shouted, as he carefully helped Dario sit up. “ _I said a sniff test, not a taste test_.”

“Vell, hy kouldn’t tell vit chust mine nose—Really, Master, somevun vill hear…”

“Boss,” Veli interjected, and absolutely did not flinch when Sorin sent a look of _absolute murder_ in his general direction. “Shhhh.”

Sorin deflated, murderously, which was frankly the cutest thing Veli had seen in a long time, and went back to checking Dario over. Dario looked vaguely embarrassed, as he should.

“So gas mask becawz ov de fumes from de arsenic?” Veli suggested.

“Hm?” Sorin said, and then shook his head, briskly, and looked over at Veli even as he forced a water flask into Dario’s hands. “Fumes, yes. There’s a fan in that mechanism, too—I just modified the blade angle and speed to change the air trajectory—it’d send at least some of the fumes directly up to be caught by the wind.”

“So ve iz looking at bigger den half a block.”

“If that’s all nitroglycerin, we’re looking at a _whole_ block just from the blast, and depending on the direction of the wind something like four or five beyond that from fumes,” Sorin said gravely, and took a deep breath, looked back at the bomb. “Dario, _do not eat any more_ , please, I have to…”

“Hokay, Master,” Dario agreed, as Sorin reached the bomb again and leaned down.

“Tamara, I need you to go to the one in the center of town and take care of it while I go to the last one.”

Oh, right, Tamara. Veli looked over at her. Tamara was still kneeling by the bomb, looking a little gray, Chestibor hovering pointedly nearby. “I don’t know how to disarm a nitroglycerin bomb,” she said, dazedly.

“Neither do I,” Sorin snapped. “’Carefully’ will have to do. Here, look, you need to get to these wires here and cut them, and then extract the compound.” He shoved some pliers and tongs into her hands, strapped the wind machine to his belt—why… “Milosh, give her the gas mask, too.”

Oh. Yeah, blowing the fumes away would work.

“Dario, take the compound out of town and then meet up with us at the third bomb,” Sorin ordered as he stood.

“Jah, Master,” Dario said, carefully standing and moving to the chest.

“Chestibor, get Tamara to the second bomb.”

“Aww.”

“Don’t complain, someone needs to get her there quickly. Veli and Milosh, you’re coming with me.” Sorin looked around the room, gave the bomb one last glance, checked each of his men a final time. “One more thing,” he said. “If you see an assassin? Kill them. Okay, go.”

They went.

* * *

_0_

The roofs of Cosnebun were not even; the town was, in a way, a sanctuary for minor Sparks, one of the few places created specifically for Sparks who weren’t interested in the Baron’s rule but weren’t strong enough on their own to really oppose him. It was formed on the theory that there was safety in numbers, and had then evolved to be an eclectic mix of minor Sparkwork architecture and colorful, fancy little gadgets covering absolutely _everything_.

All this to say, Veli considered taking the quick and less obvious route, over the top of the town, and then took the damn road instead.

“ _Gang vay_ ,” he hollered, barreling through the crowds and bouncing over a transport that was making its way carefully through the streets. “ _Comink through, important business, move out ov de vay_!”

“ _Let’s go, pipple, notting to see here_ ,” Chestibor was shouting, taking the sidewalks with Tamara on his back at a run and parting people like a sea with his bulk. Tamara was hanging on grimly, eyes set dead ahead at the roads. “ _Beck to hyu business, let’s go, move avay_.”

“Town square,” Tamara said, and Chestibor veered off to the left.

“ _Incoming_ ,” Milosh shouted, and Veli grabbed Sorin’s legs to make extra sure he stayed where he was and dived into the closing gap Chestibor had just left, barely avoiding the woman who’d landed where he was just standing knife-first.

“ _Oh my god,_ that’s the… the…” Sorin sputtered, and Veli turned his head to take a glance at their pursuer—oh hey, it was that prostitute who had tried to pick Sorin up the night he met Tamara! That brought the attempts up to five.

“Can hyu get a clear shot?” he asked, as he dodged around suddenly screaming people.

“No! There are people everywhere!”

The woman pulled out a crossbow as she ran and shot at Sorin. Veli barely managed to grab a civilian in her line of fire out of the way in time.

“Roofs,” Sorin shouted.

“She’ll haff a clear shot und ve _von’t_.”

“Veli, she’s going to _hit someone_ , get on the _roofs_.”

“Hy gots her,” Stani called from the corner of a house.

“Hoy!” Milosh shouted as she swooped down from the corner of Veli’s vision. “Dot’s mine!”

“Should haff moved faster, den,” Stani called, cheerfully, and blocked a rather well executed swipe of the assassin’s blade with the chain of her mace. Veli turned back to running.

“Stanislava, you are supposed to be with the main group,” Sorin hollered over his shoulder.

“Hyu haff to haff three jaegers vit hyu at all times, Master! _Oof_ —Chestibor seyz hyu iz only vit two!”

“Oh for heaven’s—“ Sorin started, and Veli laughed at him.

“Hy ketch op chust as soon as hy finish—“ Stani called, and then there was a _boom_ , and Sorin shouted in alarm.

“Vat?” Veli shouted.

“Someone tossed a bomb—“ Sorin said, and Veli _bounced_ up onto a sidewall, hit the ground on the other side and dived into an alley.

“She’s gots _two_ fights now,” Milosh called from his vantage point, keeping pace. “Dis iz not fair, she iz hogging all der— _Bomb_!”

Veli _bounced_ forward on his next step, flipped Sorin over to his front and threw a hand over his head as the air exploded behind him. His eyes and nose burned.

“ _Dot’s_ more like it,” Milosh crowed, and there was a _thud_ of a body hitting solid wall. “Kom on, sveetie, hy hear hyu iz a good valtzer—“

Sorin tried to pull his head off Veli’s shoulder to look. “Pepper bomb,” Veli snapped. “Vait.” And he dived into another alley, bounced up onto the nearest roof and over the other side. “Hokay.”

Sorin pulled his head up, pulled his harpoon gun out and rested it on Veli’s shoulder for balance. “I think it’s safe to say they spotted us,” he said, wryly. Velimir snorted.

“Ve vasn’t really being sottle.”

“Mm,” Sorin agreed. “Artisan quarter is along the far east wall.”

“Almost dere,” Veli assured, and then there was movement on a roof to his left, and he _slammed_ through a door just ahead of the assassin hitting the ground where he used to be. “Sorry,” he called to a startled man in the kitchen as he dashed through the back door. “Bit ov a chase, take cover—“

Sorin shot the gun behind him.

“ _Damn it_ ,” he snapped, and retracted the chain with a _clang_. “ _Dodge_.”

Veli dodged. A pepper bomb exploded to his right.

Sorin ducked his head down into Veli’s neck again with a hiss—Veli could feel his eyes squeezed shut. Shit.

“Boss?”

“Fine, they missed,” Sorin lied, as tears soaked into Veli’s jacket.

“Sorin—“

“Velimir! I’ve got it!” Sorin reached down blindly to his own belt, dragged out a bottle of something. Veli’s shoulder was suddenly a lot more wet and smelled a bit like salt. “Just _go_.”

Veli gritted his teeth, reached up and pulled his hat brim down a little lower, grimly, took another two running leaps and swung himself up and over a lattice and onto the roof of—well, it was probably a house? A building, anyway. He could see the east wall now—just as shoddy as the wall they’d gone over, really, but crawling on the inside with Sparkworks of all shapes and sizes—bright and metallic and big and small and, in some cases, literally crawling. Veli grinned. “Hold on,” he said, and took a flying jump at the next house’s roof without slowing down, felt the impact of another pepper bomb lobbed at the general area where he’d been. “Ve iz takink de short cut, bot iz gonna be bumpy.”

* * *

The third bomb was pretty easy to find, in the end. There weren’t all too many secluded, unused corners in a place like the Artisan Quarter of Cosnebun, and anyway the guy they’d sent to guard the place was standing nervously in the doorway of the abandoned shop with a musket like an idiot.

Veli leapt straight over the street from the roof of the shop on the other side, swung down on the signpost just over the idiot’s head, and kicked his musket away before he could so much as startle and begin to swing it around. Then he kicked the idiot in the head hard. There was a _crunch_ , and the guy crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

Veli landed, kicked the door down, took a second to locate the bomb in the center of the room and determine nobody else was inside, and swung Sorin into the room with enough force for him to land away from the door, turned around to face bomb guy before Sorin had even had a chance to catch his feet.

“Ow,” Sorin said from behind him, pointedly.

“Suck it op,” Veli said, reaching behind him to pick up the door. “Dat thing iz armed, hy can hear it.”

The final pepper bomb hitting the door and sending the people in the streets screaming away almost muffled Sorin’s cursing as he lunged at the bomb, but not quite. Veli grinned. “Hoy dere, darlink,” he called across the street, even as he jammed the door into the ground and reached down behind it to pull the dead assassin’s gas mask off. He slipped his hat off really quick and pulled it on. “Vhy don’t hyu kom down here und giff me a real fight!”

He ducked behind the door again as the live assassin chucked another bomb. The door cracked straight down the middle.

“No need,” the assassin called. “I have another ten of these, and your door won’t last for one! You want to fight me, you’ll have to come over here!”

There was some movement in the shadows of the shop door in the next building over. Veli casually ripped a brick off the wall and threw it, beaned the assassin hiding there in the head. He heard the _crunch_ of impact, didn’t even bother to look over to watch him fall. “Naw, hy iz goot here,” he said cheerfully, and picked up the musket. “See, hy could just do dis—“ he aimed and shot across the street. Predictably, the assassin dropped to the roof and rolled behind cover. “Bot dat iz boring,” he continued, blithely.

The assassin laughed, out of sight. “I have all the time in the world, jaeger,” he called. “You, on the other hand…”

“He vot?” Milosh’s voice said, out of nowhere.

“ _Hngck_.”

“Ah, too slow, sorry!”

“ _Hoy_ ,” Veli shouted, as Milosh came into view with the dead assassin over one shoulder, neck turned all the way around. “Dat vos _my_ fight!”

“Didn’t look like moch ov a fight,” Milosh called, and casually dropped the corpse into the street before jumping down himself. “Looked like hyu vos sorta schtock yellink insults at each odder.”

“Hyu vas _just complaining_ dat Stani vas hogging de fights,” Veli hollered. “Hyu _hypocrite_.”

“Vell,” Milosh said, bending to pick up the dead guy’s gas mask and wander across the street. He was already wearing one himself. “Hyu iz hogging der Master, so.”

“Hy vill trade!”

“Milosh, on the door!” Sorin ordered from inside, and the two of them snapped to attention. “Veli, get in here, I need hands.”

Veli took the gas mask from Milosh and went.

Sorin was back in the bomb, head and shoulders completely obscured by the metal casing. A panel had clearly been unscrewed and thrown aside, and he was muttering to himself.

“Hold this,” he ordered, and pulled out what looked like a broader version of the fan that was still on his belt. “I can’t get to the compound from the side—I don’t know what the hell this guy thought he was doing. I need to go in from the bottom. Give me some light.”

“Right,” Veli said, and cast about for a lamp or something. There was a hanging lantern in the corner—that would do. He pulled it down and started rummaging for a light.

“Veli!”

“Tryink to light it,” Veli snapped.

“Oh my—“ Sorin pulled himself out of the bomb, shoved a hand into his bag and pulled out the little fire gun. His eyes were red and bloodshot still, tears streaming down his face and cheeks smeared like he’d been trying to wipe them away. Veli cringed, took the gun and lit the lantern.

“Hold it near the opening,” Sorin said, and dived back into the mechanism again, this time face up. “Okay, I’m going to cut the wires, and then unscrew the jar.”

“Right,” Veli said.

“Lower the light a bit.”

“Sorry.”

Sorin’s hand reappeared, tapped the floor on one side, and then disappeared so the other could do the same, found and pulled a pair of wire cutters in with him.

 _Snip, snip_. And just like that, the quiet ticking sound stopped. “Ha,” Sorin said, and the wire cutters clattered out of the opening again. “Okay, how to do this from here… Veli, stick your hand in, palm up. I need you to catch this when I loosen it.”

Veli stuck his hand into the opening, bent his elbow at an angle to obscure the light as little as possible, let Sorin position it so that his palm was pressed against the cool jar. There were some snapping noises, and then the jar _twisted_ in Veli’s palm, weight settling right into the center. He closed his fingers on it and lowered his hand, carefully removed the jar from the bomb—slowly, slowly… there. He set it down on the floor. Sorin breathed out and extracted himself, scrubbed an arm over his eyes.

Veli shoved the spare gas mask onto Sorin’s head. Sorin sputtered, reached up to adjust it. “Hey—“

“Don’t argue vit me,” Veli growled.

Sorin sighed, rolled his eyes behind the glass and turned back to the jar.

“Milosh?” he called.

“Jah, Master, und Stani iz here too.”

“Great,” Sorin responded. “Which one of you wants to carefully bring a jar of nitroglycerin over the wall and detonate it away from the city?”

“Hy iz not here after all,” Stani called. Sorin snorted.

“Well, that’s too bad, because—“

“ _Master_!” Sorin was on his feet and marching to the door in the next second, shoving the gas mask up onto his head as there was a _thump_ on the roof and Lyubo swung himself over the top, leaned over to catch his breath.

“What happened? Did the second bomb—“

“No,” Lyubo said, breathing lightly and straightening up. “Miz Tamara gots dot. Ve found an assassin und ve esked him about tings und ve tink dere iz two more bombz dot iz beink armed now!”

Sorin stared at him, mouth half open like he’d started to say something and lost the thread of the sentence partway through. “…Wow,” he said finally, bloodshot eyes almost almost half unfocused, like he was staring at something only he could see. “It’s—they’re not even trying to hit me anymore.”

“Boss?”

“They’re just going to—going to _blow up the city_ because they _think_ they can GET _AWAY_ WITH IT!” Sorin spun on his heel, marched back into the room. “I AM GOING TO RIP THEM LIMB FROM LIMB. I AM GOING TO THROW THEM ON THEIR OWN BOMBS. I—LYUBO.” He rounded on the jaegers again, Saturnus— _Heterodyne_ in every inch of him. “How long ago did they set them?”

“He didn’t know, about vhen dey set dese?” Lyubo offered.

“ _Red_ fire,” Sorin snapped, and snatched up his tools. “We need to do a sweep of the town—where would they hit the most people? Other than Town Square and here.”

“Vater supply,” Veli said.

“In the Town Square,” Sorin said shortly. “There’s a well.”

“Hospital?”

“Also in der center,” Lyubo said, shrugging.

“Poor planning,” Veli griped. “Dey iz making dat easy.”

“Mm.”

“Reseedence deestrict?” Stani offered.

“Gate?” Milosh suggested.

“Gate makes sense if they were going to blow us up,” Sorin said, and jerked the gas mask back onto his face. “Lyubo, go and get the main group and head to the Gate. Do a sweep. Milosh, take the bomb out of town. Stani and Veli, you’re faster. We need to figure out where in the residence district they could plant a bomb.”

“Need a guide,” Stani said, shortly.

“A guide?”

“Iz deir town, Master, und dey iz Schparks, so…”

“Right. Go find us a guide, meet up with us on the way to the district.” Sorin turned to Velimir. “Veli.”

Veli swooped Sorin up, picked up the musket and Sorin’s harpoon gun while he was at it. “Ve hunt,” he yelled, flipping himself up onto the roof and taking off, the old battle cry echoed by the others and off the empty street. Veli was moving too fast to hear the echoes dissipate.

* * *

Stani caught up surprisingly quickly with a lady maybe a year or two older than Sorin—brown hair in a messy ponytail, goggles strapped to her forehead, practical clothes, and a look in her eye that implied this was her first time riding a jaeger and she was perhaps enjoying the experience more than a sane person would.

“Dis is Marcie,” Stani called, falling into pace with Veli—he could crest the various Sparkworks on the roofs easier, but she was overall more maneuverable than Veli was on hooves. “She likes der bombs!”

“I like concussive force of all varieties!” Marcie interrupted, in a tone that implied she thought this was an extremely important clarification. “And I have a few suggestions as to how you can improve that musket, Mr. Jaeger Sir, the propulsion on that model is atrocious! If you have twenty-seven silver and a few days, I can improve it by a percentage of—“

“We have a bomb powered by a jar of arsenic-laced nitro with enough force to take out a block!” Sorin interrupted. “Where would you put it in the residential district to do the most damage?”

“Basement of the President’s Mansion,” she shouted promptly. “It’s open to the public—lab space and the town library!”

“Too obvious! What if I don’t want it noticed?”

“Oh! Probably the public toilet then! Smells awful so nobody goes in there, lots of houses around full of potential casualties, and fecal matter will give it a nice kick! Are you setting it or looking for it, by the way?”

“You’re hired,” Sorin yelled back, as Veli choked on a sudden fit of laughter and nearly missed his footing. “Where is it?”

“Take a left here!”

* * *

Marcie was right, the bomb was in the public outhouse.

So was the assassin who set it up.

“I wouldn’t touch me, if I were you,” the boy said cheerfully from his perch on top of the bomb casing, the moment they entered the wooden building. He was sitting relaxed there, with his legs crossed and the gas mask on his knee, bright red curls frizzing out around his face like a sunset-colored cloud. The deep ticking of the bomb’s timer in the casing echoed off the empty outhouse, filled each of the wooden stalls. _Tock-tock-tock_.“I cracked the jar on accident, and it’s leaking in there. I shoved the ice box in too, so it’s cold enough for now that it may not drip and kill us all immediately, but jostling the casing sounds like a really bad idea!”

“…Huh,” said Sorin, and dropped off Veli’s back. “Well, that’s inconvenient.”

_Tock-tock-tock-tock._

“Yup,” the assassin agreed, smiling sunnily. “Granted, it’s going to go the moment the timer counts down anyway, so really there’s only about five minutes either way.”

“Wow, you’re lucky it didn’t blow when you screwed up,” Marcie told him, eyes wide.

“Naw,” the boy said—well, man, probably. He looked about Sorin’s age, but there was… something about his demeanor that read as _young_ to Veli. “That’s not how these things work, see. I wasn’t meant to die until I set it up to kill all of you!”

“What’s your name?” Sorin asked, stepping forward to check on the casing and glance around at their surroundings. His footsteps were heavy on the wooden floor, competing with the echoes as the timer ticked on. Veli gritted his teeth and waited.

“Oh, I’m Arik!”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sorin. Thanks for the heads up, Arik, we’ll go for a controlled explosion instead. Go ahead, Stani.”

The boy’s neck snapped with a _crack_. Stani caught his limp form and lifted it off the bomb before he could jostle it, dropped him in the corner without a word.

“Hey!” Marcie shouted. Veli turned to look at her, still in the doorway. Her eyes were wide with shock.

“He’s part of a cult that is out to eliminate Sparks and all their creations by force,” Sorin said, distracted. “They were hired to kill me, but taking out all of Cosnebun would be a nice bonus to their cause. Still want to help me?”

Marcie blinked. “Oh. Well, yeah, I don’t want to blow up!”

“Good,” Sorin said, with a grim smile. “Because we have five minutes if we’re lucky, and we can’t move that damn thing at all.” He pulled a watch out of his belt pouch, spun the dial a few times and hit the button. The sound of the watch clicking joined the tock-tock-tock of the bomb’s timer, filling the small space with passing time.

Marcie scoffed. “Sure we can,” she said, walking slowly and carefully over to the casing. “We need to bring the internal temperature down a hell of a lot, though, and then we’ll have to move carefully. Damn, wish I’d brought my boiler— _Hey_!” Sorin froze mid-pace. “Don’t move so much! The vibrations could set off the nitro!”

“Boiler?” Sorin asked, slowly putting his foot back down.

“Yeah! One of my best products! For all your containment or controlled destruction needs, and it heats your house too! Want one? I work on commission for first-time customers, so if you need a particular size or style—“

“Marcie!” Sorin’s voice cracked like a whip through the cacophony of sound in the room, sharp and quick. Marcie’s mouth snapped shut.

“…Sorry,” she said finally, running a slightly shaking hand through her hair. “Habit.”

_Tick-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick—_

“Okay,” Sorin said, out loud to nobody in particular. “So we can pick it up very carefully if we get the right tools. We need to build something to contain the blast, and to neutralize the fumes… Reinforce the walls?”

“Mm, wood’s too old,” Marcie said. “And anyway, that would only hold it on three sides. Explosion would go down and create a crater.”

“So dampening effect all around. Definitely going to need to cool it off, then.”

“Hy go und find sumting, Master,” Stani said.

“Yeah,” Sorin said. “Go.”

Stani calmly and lightly walked to the door and out of the building. She was off like a shot the moment her feet touched down on the ground.

“We need a material that will work as a dampener,” Sorin said. “Something nearby and likely to be available in large numbers.” He pulled the gas mask off the top of his head, dark curls flying everywhere, and began tapping it against his thigh in counterpoint to the ticking. “Dirt?”

“Mm, we’d have to fill the whole room with it and pray it’s enough, and we’d still have the crater problem. Could build a shell like my boiler—“

“Mm, we could maybe go with something relatively elastic, and use electricity to stiffen it up. I have a gun that shoots an electric charge.”

“Ooh, that sounds like fun!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty proud of it. It’s like a harpoon gun, and it works as a grappling hook, too.”

“Hyu iz gonna giff hyuself a bruise,” Veli interrupted, derailing the Sparky sidetrip into Sorin’s harpoon gun they were about to go down. Sorin blinked, looked at him questioningly. “De tapping vit de mask,” Veli explained.

_Tick-tick-ticktock-tick-tick-tock-tick—_

“Hm? Nah, there’s a lot of padding in these pants—“ Sorin cut himself off, looked down to stare at his pants. “…Cotton wool,” he murmured.

“What?” Marcie asked.

“Oh my god, remind me to send Rozalia a gift basket.” Sorin rounded on Veli, still to animated in less than a heartbeat, eyes lit with madness and grinning for all he was worth. “I need you to go and get clothes,” he said. “As many as you can. And maybe some fencing or some wiring or something—and an engine and generator! Or, well, only if you can find it, I can rig something up if not—Marcie!” He turned to look at her. Marcie was staring at him, understanding slowly spreading across her face with a matching grin. “The fumes. We need to isolate the—“

“Yes, yes, there’s a water pump right out back, we can—But how to heat it?“

“Haha, I have another gun.”

“You have all the guns, friend, I am jealous!”

“Get a hose too, Veli,” Sorin said. “We need to be able to get the water in here—Tell Stani to hurry with that ice or freezer, too, we’re going to need to cool a lot off very quickly.”

“Jah,” Veli said, and carefully walked towards the door, light and easy, almost there…

“Sorin,” Marcie said, over at the bomb again and eying it up like a particularly tasty-looking beetle. “What about leaking?”

“Hmmmmmmm—oh! What if—“

Veli touched down on the earth past the threshold, and shot off, fast as he could. Behind him, his Master and his new assistant set to work.

* * *

Veli was back less than two minutes later with all the clothing in the house next door, a car engine, a hose, about nine meters of iron fencing, and also the inhabitants of the house—an older couple who had gotten exactly what he wanted them to the moment he went in and demanded it, and then followed him back to the outhouse while peppering him with questions.

Stani was back, too, holding what looked like a huge iron ice box in place while Sorin (who was down to his underthings) and an old guy (same) slowly lowered the bomb into it. Marcie (equally semi-nude) was over at the fan Sorin had created, locking it in place on a beam with a huge bag of ice behind. Sorin’s little cloth gun was bolted to the fan, the clothing shooting through it and coming out the other side shiny and otherwise un-singed.

Stani gave Veli a look that was three parts sheepish and one part absolutely gleeful at the mayhem. Veli snorted back.

“Boss, gots de schtoff und also extra hands!”

“ _Excellent_ ,” Sorin called, slamming the top of the box in place. “Give it here. Also, strip off your clothes and add them to the pile, all of you, we need all the cloth we can get.”

Veli blinked, mind momentarily derailed by a half-naked Sorin telling him to strip. Stani snickered.

“Okay,” Sorin called. “Do you have the wire? _Perfect_. Marcie—“

“On it, _sir_ ,” Marcie called, sounding only half teasing, and grabbed the fencing as Veli reached her, began to do something impressive with it that locked it to the engine and ringed it with the cloth.

“You two get over here, we’re using this gun as a power source. I need these ends to attach to the fan—“

“Ooh, and then it will power the—“

“Yes, exactly,” Sorin said, and picked up the hose. “Veli,” he said as he rigged the small device thing to it. “Go attach this end to the pump outside and turn it on.”

“Not enough oomph, son,” the old man called. “Won’t have enough pressure.”

“Lick an unidentified explosive, Turnmon,” Sorin griped. “I know what I’m doing—“

Veli took the contraption and ran out again, skidded to a halt next to the pump. Okay, how to attach this thing…

“Here, laddy, let me,” said a completely random stranger, and with a quick twist and some copper wire the hose was lodged inside the pump. He flicked the switch. “Now, Laura Turnmon just called and said there was a bomb. I live in the red house up the street, how can I help?”

“ _Ha_!” Sorin shouted from inside the outhouse, as the hose went stiff with flowing water.

“…Hy think hyu’d better kom in,” Veli said, grinning for all he was worth. Oh, they were _definitely_ going to win this...

* * *

They enclosed the bomb in some sort of bubble made of the wire and the clothes they’d changed in the fire gun. It stood all on its own in the center of the room, wired to three different engine things and trailing a hose. They’d filled it with water vapor, Sorin told him distractedly, with the intention of giving the fumes nowhere to go and giving themselves the ability to dilute the arsenic and then turn it back into a liquid. Easy and efficient, he’d explained, as he put yet another layer of ice on the outside of the bubble, jaw set and eyes burning with fire.

The bubble thing still hit the ceiling when it blew, a minute too early.

“ _Grab it_ ,” Sorin shouted, as two of the Sparks lunged for the now-bouncing bubble of arsenic fumes and potentially still-dangerous nitroglycerin. “No, don’t puncture it, you’ll kill everyone— _Velimir_!”

Veli leapt, responding to the order in Sorin’s tone without thinking, slammed into the freezing cold and electrified bubble thing with the full force of the bounce and holding on, grimly, as it sent shocks up his arms and made his teeth ache, as he landed on his hooves and braced. Black started crawling in at the corners of his vision, spiraling inwards as his legs gave out and—

 _“Turn it off_ ,” Sorin snapped, and the shocks stopped, and everything went dark.

He came to again with every inch of him burning and Sorin hovering over him, worriedly. “Easy,” Sorin murmured, one strong arm under Veli’s shoulders. Mm, nice. “Can you sit?”

Veli could. The world tipped worryingly for a moment but then righted itself.

“How many fingers?” Sorin asked, holding up three. Veli rolled his eyes at him, tongue momentarily too numb to try teasing. “Hey! Don’t you roll your eyes at me—“

“He iz hokay, Master,” Stani said, from somewhere behind Velimir. “Hy told hyu he iz goink to be fine—“

“Veli,” Sorin interrupted.

“’Free,” Veli muttered, and then cleared his throat tried again. “Three. Hy ‘z hokay. Just leetle tingly.”

Sorin gave him a look like he didn’t quite believe it. “The volts coming through that—“

“Jaeger,” Veli reminded Sorin, and smiled.

“Sorin, come over here and take a look at this,” Marcie called, and Sorin’s head snapped over, eyes flashing again in interest before he shook himself, looked back at Veli, unsure.

“Hy just need to get mine feet under me,” Veli assured. It came out a bit slurred, but that was okay. “Stani vill help. Go on.”

“You call me back over if something changes,” Sorin threatened, and then he was gone and Veli was sitting alone and a little woozily in the center of the room. Stani appeared, and held out a hand. He took it.

“Apparently dey forgot to shield for der elektricity,” she explained, wryly. Veli snorted, and let her pull him to his feet.

“Ho, really,” he said, testing putting his weight on his legs and finding it a relatively safe endeavor. “Hy didn’t notice.”

“Master _Sorin_ noteeced,” Stani said, and elbowed him roughly in the side. Veli’s right knee wobbled a bit, but otherwise he stayed on his feet. He scowled at her anyway, for the shove and for the implication.

“Schot op,” he growled. Stanislava raised her hands innocently, and then wandered back over to the door. Veli stretched, and then went to go make use of an abandoned water flask in the corner.

The Sparks were bent over the now deflated bubble thing, poking at it as it sloshed around and making notes on some paper that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. Sorin was in the center, clearly holding court, even if he didn’t seem to realize they were all turned to him, listened a little closer when he spoke.

It felt like something had slotted into place. Veli smiled, and leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes for just a second.

The shockwave through the ground more than the enormous, thundering _boom_ startled him awake.

“ _Master Sorin_ ,” Stani shouted, and then there was pandemonium, Sparks thundering towards the door in a pack, Sorin not even in the lead, although he certainly was near the front. Veli shook off the grogginess that came from sleeping while injured, followed them out the door at a run, caught up just in time for the whole group of them to stop in stunned, horrified shock.

There was smoke coming from the Town Center, lazily carried on the wind towards the north wall. From here, the disaster sirens were already sounding.

“No,” Sorin said, into the silence. He was staring at the smoke like he’d been stabbed straight through, like the shock before your body fully registers a bullet wound, like he was going to be _sick_ or _scream_ or—

It was like Sorin’s response gave everyone else permission to react. Suddenly everyone was panicking, people shouting, two or three of them ripping tools out of their belts and frantically running back into the outhouse like they could Spark their way out of a bomb going off in their town center. Sorin just stood there, eyes fixed on the smoke, fists clenched, and Veli wanted to fix it for him, to wipe that look away like it had never been, but there was nothing he could do—

“ _Everyone stop_ ,” Sorin snapped suddenly, and rounded on the group of them. The Sparks stopped like someone had pulled a needle off a record, screaming to silent. “We need to get down there,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “We need… something to move debris, we need medical supplies, and we need as _many gas masks as we can carry_. Turnmon, get back to your house—here, reverse engineer from that one.” He ripped the gas mask off his own head and thrust it into the old man’s hands. “Marcie, pull my fan out, we’re going to use it to try to blow the smoke away. Frederick,” he turned to the Spark who’d helped Veli with the water pump. “Medical supplies. As many as you can carry. The rest of you are going to help me jury-rig something to move debris and pull people out of the wreckage. Oh god, okay, let’s go.”

“Boss,” Veli started, as Sorin started marching back to the outhouse. Sorin stopped, turned, and the look he gave Veli nearly dried the words in his mouth. “Boss, ve don’t know if dere iz enny more ov dose down dere now.”

“I don’t care,” Sorin said. “If we find more bombs, I will deal with them.” His eyes were molten with anger and determination and Spark, his shoulders back, jaw set to mulish—this was a the look of a Heterodyne who had made up his mind to go to battle, good idea or not.

And Veli had only ever had one role when Sorin went to war, since that day on Castle Wulfenbach when Tereza Heterodyne had asked him to be Sorin’s shield and he had said yes. Besides, by now, when Sorin looked like that, Veli didn’t even wonder anymore if he would succeed. Velimir breathed in, breathed out again, and nodded.

“Stani,” he said, as Sorin turned back around and marched into the outhouse after his little rescue team. “Hy need hyu to find de odderz und bring dem here to regroup—all ov dem. Master Sorin iz gonna needs boots on der ground.”

“Yaz, sir,” Stani said, and took off down a little hill towards the road to the gate, her own gas mask firmly on. Veli breathed again, one more time, and then followed his Heterodyne into the outhouse.

He was the Captain of Sorin Heterodyne’s Guard, and it was time to get back to work.

* * *

Later, Sorin would tell Veli that they had one more stop to make, and then they were going back to Castle Wulfenbach. Sorin needed to plan, he said. He needed to talk to the Baron, he needed to let Veli get some more men to flesh out their team, he needed to make repairs. When Veli asked what he was planning, eyebrow raised, Sorin looked surprised.

“I’m going to hunt down the rest of them,” he said, like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “They can’t be allowed to _do_ this again, and since they targeted _me_ …” He smiled, grimly, centuries of Heterodyne blood flowing through his eyes and stance and Spark. “It gets to be me who does it.”

“Hokay,” Veli said, and it was. “Vhen do ve leave?”

* * *


	7. Epilogue

_8_

The day had begun the way most days started for William Mauer. He’d woken at exactly 5:30, as he always did, and dressed and breakfasted in his room over the notes of his spymaster from the previous night. He’d done a quick circuit of his castle—he’d found things tended to be more reliably in their places with this personal touch—and then done another on the outside of the castle, at the insistence of his physician (the man had gone away to Paris and come back insisting movement was the way to cure aching joints. William thought this was rather counter-productive, but the only way to find out was to attempt it, so for now he had agreed to the additional exercise).

Then he’d headed back to his room to freshen up, and gone down to his office, precisely at 6:30, as he always did.

The man sitting behind his desk, unknown and uninvited, looked up from William’s papers almost absently, like he could not _imagine_ a reason why William would be surprised to see him there. “Wow, you’re actually right on time,” the man said, sitting up and putting the papers down as he did. “Tamara said you did mornings like clockwork, but you are here _exactly at 6:30_. My watch just clicked over, even. Impressive.”

William’s mouth, which had opened to express his outrage at this invasion of his privacy, snapped shut.

The man had dark, wildly curling hair and equally dark eyes. He was built like a man who worked for a living, in simple leathers and cottons. The left side of his face was peppered with tiny, red scars, like glass had exploded too close to his head and he’d turned away just in time. And he was flanked, William noticed belatedly, by constructs that could only be jaegermonsters—one twice the size of a normal man, deep blue and _clearly_ something close to 300 pounds of muscle, and the other longer and thinner, closer to an average height but glowing an eerie, radioactive green, which only emphasized the unnatural green of his hair and skin.

Both monsters were grinning.

“Do come in,” Sorin Heterodyne invited William into his own office, “and have a seat. This may take a while.”

“How did you get in here,” William asked, not moving an inch, heart suddenly pounding. Nobody was in this hallway right now; it was too early, and they knew he liked his privacy during the morning to review the previous day’s work and prepare for the afternoon—

“Oh, please,” the Heterodyne sitting at his desk said, rolling his eyes. “I used the door! Tamara let me in.” He gestured to the corner, where there was another chair. William looked on automatic, saw his daughter sitting there, prim-looking and quiet, as she should be, and jaw set in rebellion the way he’d never been able to really stomp out. William felt his heart drop.

“How could you,” he said, letting the betrayal he felt be heard in his voice.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Father,” Tamara said, tersely. “Come in and close the door. You hardly have any other options right now.”

William stared at her, waited for her to look down, look away, show some _shame_ for her actions—Tamara’s jaw tightened further, but she otherwise did not respond. William closed his eyes, then looked back at the Heterodyne, walked into the room, and closed the door.

“Great,” the Spark said, leaning onto William’s desk like he owned it. “Now come and sit down.”

“I’d rather stand,” William said shortly.

“Suit yourself. Lets begin, then. I hear you hired some assassins to kill me!” The Spark grinned at William, showing all his teeth. William froze, pinned, a rabbit staring down a wolf. “Tamara told me why you did it already, so honestly I don’t care what you have to say for yourself. You should know, though, that the results of your actions are currently 200 dead, some 2 million in property damage in Clardale and Cosnebun, and the extinction of… the Cult of the Witness of Devastation--which frankly speaking isn't exactly a problem. Good job.”

William felt himself break into a cold sweat. “That was not my intention,” he insisted, heart back in his throat and making it difficult to force out the words.

“No,” the Heterodyne snapped, suddenly, into the silence. William jumped. “You just thought it was your _right_ to give me a death sentence for things I _may_ have done in the future, because those things would have been _inconvenient_ for you—“

“ _Inconvenient_ ,” William snarled, forgetting his terror in his indignation, all at once. “You think the return of the Old Heterodynes would be _inconvenient_ for me? For this region?”

“Let’s not play games,” the Heterodyne said, voice going cold. “You don’t care at all about the region. You care about your treaty, and what might have happened to it if Mechanicsburg passed out of the Baron’s control.”

“Well, of _course_ I do,” William snarled. “This is _my town_.”

“Not according to your treaty,” the Heterodyne said, and the snarl turned into a smirk.

“ _Excuse me_ —“

“I’d say, considering _your town_ is built on the continued trade with and proximity to Mechanicsburg,” the man said, leaning back in the chair, “that this is actually _Mechanicsburg’s_ town. And I think you know that, or you wouldn’t have _hired a cult of Spark-hating fanatics to have me killed_.”

William flinched.

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that your attempts to keep your bottom line have lost you _your town_ completely,” the Heterodyne continued, and the world went still around William, went cold. “Effective immediately.” No. “I have your terms of surrender all written up right here.“ The Spark held up a sheaf of paper. William stared at it, unable to speak. “They’re _very_ reasonable. You agree that the town is now under the direct control of the Wulfenbach Empire, and your daughter will be taking complete control of the day-to-day affairs in your stead. And _you_ , in turn, get to live.”

“ _Aha_ ,” William rounded on his daughter, felt his face twist into a snarl. “So! It comes to light! You twisted, manipulative little girl, no wonder you betrayed me! You wanted my town—“

“ _Shut up_ ,” the Heterodyne bellowed. William’s mouth snapped shut. “Tamara is the _one and only_ reason you are not currently hanging from your own flagpole by your guts! God knows my Guards think I should do it anyway, and never mind her attempts to save her weasel of a father’s sad little life.“ William stepped back, impacting the door behind him, hand going to his guts. His knees shook, threatened to drop him to the ground. His eyes went to the green jaegermonster. It grinned even broader, terrifying shark teeth backlit by that radioactive glow.

“It was her _one_ change,” the Heterodyne continued, _spat_ , like a viper spitting venom, “and the price of her cooperation. Really, I think she’s getting the short end of the stick here, but I don’t trust her enough to let her go back to school to disappear into who knows what else, so here we are!” He stood, eyes flashing, mouth twisted in a snarl. William quailed. “Maybe you should be thanking her instead.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Tamara said, stiffly. The Spark’s eyes whipped around to her, eyes leaving William to stab his daughter instead. William reached back and grabbed the wall, desperately willing his bad knees to keep him upright.

He could not fall to the floor in front of the Heterodyne. That was the type of weakness that could get you killed.

“Mm,” the Heterodyne said, and sat again. “If you say so.” He turned his eyes back William a few more seconds, like he was considering stringing him up a flagpole anyway, like he could physically stab William with just a look, and then looked down at the papers in front of him, rage gone as though it had never been.

“You are going to sign these,” he said calmly, “and then I am going to _personally_ deliver them to Baron Wulfenbach, and we will be done. You get to keep your precious treaty, by the way. I’m not going to punish your people for your mistakes.” He looked up again, pinned William to the door again with his eyes. “At least, not right now. But you should _both_ know, if I ever hear about either of you, if I ever get an inkling, if I ever even have a _passing thought_ that you’re connected to an assassination attempt on me or mine again, treaty or no treaty, I will come back and burn this place to the ground.” He smirked, mouth twisting his face like a tear in fabric. The blue jaeger gave a quiet little chuckle, an almost nostalgic look on his face. “Another thing you should be proud of, actually. I’ve never made that threat before! Congratulations on being my first.”

They stared at each other for another minute, two, a predator and his prey. Tamara sat in the corner, saying nothing. The monsters flanked their master, equally silent, still grinning their shark-teeth grins.

“Are you going to sign,” Sorin Heterodyne asked, voice calm and cool as ice.

“…I am,” William said.

“Good,” the Heterodyne said, and held out a pen. “Then sign.”

He signed.

* * *

End

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote, everyone! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed working on it (actually I hope you enjoyed it a lot more than I enjoyed working on it, there were moments with this thing, haha). No, I kid, this was a blast, and I love all the characters, and I am absolutely aware this is sort of open-ended and I am not sorry. :P
> 
> In all seriousness, I am planning to write one more multichapter in this series, set about five years from now (*eyes summary* 9.9) and probably a number of oneshots in between, so rest assured this is hardly the last you've seen of everyone. Thanks again to Askerian for helping me along the way in this, and giving me permission to do it in the first place, and here's hoping now that the muse has released me with this one that it will let me work on SOMETHING ELSE. XDDDD;


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